Study for "Visit of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress to Algeria"

Isidore Pils

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After achieving success with paintings of Crimean War subjects, Pils received a commission for a monumental work commemorating Napoleon III’s visit to Algeria in 1860. Though the painting is now lost, an oil sketch reveals that this drawing is a study for the central figure of the composition, one of the Kabyle leaders who received the Emperor. Pils spent two years in Kabylie, a northern region of Algeria, sketching the landscape and people. In this accomplished study, he effectively combines black and white chalks to convey the light hitting the burnous, a garment traditionally worn for important events by high-ranking individuals.

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