The Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, Rome

The Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, Rome

François Marius Granet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Aix-en-Provence, Granet was a student of Jean Antoine Constantin before leaving for Rome in 1802, where he would remain until 1819. Granet became well known as a painter of architecture and landscape, admired for his close observation of nature and subtle effects of light. This sheet is the plein air study for one of his most famous paintings, La Trinité des Monts et la villa Médicis, à Rome (Musée du Louvre, Paris, R.F. 1981-12), dated 1808. Between the drawing and the finished painting, numerous small differences can be observed, from the group of figures added in the lower right foreground to the many small adjustments in the architecture, visible throughout, but especially along the right and left margins.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, RomeThe Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, RomeThe Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, RomeThe Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, RomeThe Church of the Trinità dei Monti and the Villa Medici, Rome

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.