Aymon Premier

Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières, comte de Caylus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The comte de Caylus was an antiquarian, a writer and an amateur etcher who influenced many artists and collectors of the Rococo period. This charming and whimsical portrait print records a lost drawing by Caylus's friend, the painter Charles Coypel. It represents Étienne-Isidore-Théophile Aymon (1659-1731), portemanteau to the king and co-founder, along with Philibert-Emmanuel de Torsac of a bawdy and comic society, originating in the military, called Le Régiment de la Calotte. The society’s coat-of-arms can be seen in the print just below Aymon’s portrait.

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