Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)

Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rossetti’s 1857 illustrations of Tennyson—reissued here in 1903—incorporate startling effects derived from medieval and early Renaissance art. Space collapses, forms are cut off, and narrative details are inserted without concern for conventional perspective. Sir Galahad is a night scene dramatized by flaming candles first in a woodland shrine. Rossetti criticized the engravers and insisted on many changes, delaying the publication.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)Sir Galahad (from Tennyson's Poems, New York, 1903)

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.