The Flood (reproduced for Calvert's "Memoir")

Edward Calvert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Calvert, the oldest member of the Ancients, was arguably its finest printmaker. Masterful control of line, strong articulation of light and shade, and bold sense of design lend his tiny lithographs surprising power, drawing the viewer into intricate worlds. Calvert's unusual approach to lithography may have been inspired by Blake's method of relief etching, which combined additive and subtractive processes. After drawing his design on the stone with tushe, a greasy black ink, Calvert then scratched away passages using a needle, creating fine white lines that resemble wood engraving. Here, a man helps a woman walk along a narrow log placed across a raging river towards a man who drives cattle along the bank at right.

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