Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252

Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252

Ferdinand Joubert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maclise exploited the nineteenth century’s fascination with past artists by depicting the Italian painter Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) showing one of his paintings to a potential client. The scene was suggested by a passage in Lady Morgan’s "The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa," published in two volumes in London in 1824. Joubert’s print after the painting was first published in the English art monthly "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal") in August 1848. It accompanied a text that admired Maclise’s "work of stirling merit . . . while the various accessories composing the usual contents of the connoisseurs’ bazaar are put together with the happiest effect." Joubert rendered with skill the mass of objects and furniture in the cluttered interior.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252Salvator, from "The Art Union" (later "The Art Journal"), opposite p. 252

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.