New Inventions of Modern Times [Nova Reperta], The Invention of Gunpowder, plate 3

Jan Collaert I

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Third plate from a print series entitled Nova Reperta (New Inventions of Modern Times) consisting of a title page and 19 plates, engraved by Jan Collaert I, after Jan van der Straet, called Stradanus, and published by Philips Galle. Illustration of a gunpowder factory. In the foreground on the left a man chisels the top to a canon. In the center two men work on the back of a canon. On the right a seated man works on another series of canons while looking toward the viewer. In the background a man pushes a canon around in a kiln, while another also works with fire on the upper level of the factory. In the background on the right, several canons go off to test the gunpowder; behind the fortified wall, a tower crumbles into an inferno due to the blast.

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.