Thesis Proclamation of José Vicente Maldonado y Trespalacios, dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe

Baltasar Troncoso y Sotomayor

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is a thesis presented to the Royal University of Mexico by a candidate for a degree in Medicine. The thesis is dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose image is included in the form of a small engraving with a Latin inscription that translates 'He hath done this for no other nation.' The phrase affirmed that the Virgin’s miraculous apparition in Mexico was a sign of divine favor. It was invoked with particular frequency after 1737 when the Virgin of Guadalupe was credited with intervening to end a deadly epidemic.

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