The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574

The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574

Anonymous

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Following his brother’s death in May 1574, Henri III of France returned from Poland to France to claim the crown, traveling via Venice, where the triumphal arch shown here was raised to welcome him. The arch was designed by the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) and based on the ancient Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome. It led onto a loggia set up on the Lido that was decorated with paintings by leading artists Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–1594) and Paolo Veronese (1528–1588). The members of each guild in Venice prepared a ship decorated to reflect their profession; fifteen of the most important are identified here with small inscriptions. This print was made in 1591, some seventeen years after the event—demonstrating how the visit, regarded as a state occasion, was seen as worthy of memorialization.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574The arrival of Henri III of France at the Lido in Venice in 1574

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.