Pantomime with fireworks performed for the marriage of Emperor Leopold I to the Infanta Margarita of Spain in Vienna, 1666

Melchior Küsel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hercules battling centaurs at center. Plate from a book documenting the fireworks display for the marriage of Leopold I to the Infanta Margarita of Spain, titled: 'Vin Himmeln entzündete und durch allgemeinen Zuruff der Erde sich Himmelwerts erschwingende Frolokshungs Flammen zur Begengnus des Hochzeitlichen beylagers Beeder Khaiserlichen Maistäten Leopoldi des Ersten Römischen Kaisers auch zu Hungarn und Böham Königs, Ertzhertzogen zu Oesterreich, etc. und Margarita geborner Infantin aus Hispanien 1666'.

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