Portrait of Paul Rajon

Emile Boilvin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this small, sketch-like portrait, Boilvin shows Rajon working intently over an etching plate. The two printmakers were friends since their student days in Metz. Boilvin is gently satirical in his portrayal, making a childlike drawing the product of Rajon's intense concentration. Following Rajon's untimely death in 1888, the portrait acquired an added poignancy and greater public exposure in the 1890s. It was included in the large exhibition of contemporary etching at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1896 and two years later, the French monthly journal "L'Estampe et L'Affiche" offered impressions to its readers.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art