New Inventions of Modern Times [Nova Reperta], The Invention of the Polishing of Armor, plate 17

Jan Collaert I

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seventeenth 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 an armor polishing workshop. In the foreground on the left two young boys carry in baskets full of armor. On the right a man and a young boy unpack the baskets of armor. In the middle ground two men seated at the polishing machine, clean pieces of armor. In the background on the right two men carrying swords interact with one another.

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.