Old Couple and Death with Bagpipes

Werner van den Valckert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Old Couple and Death with Bagpipes is part of a pair of prints relating to the traditional theme the Dance of Death. In the pendant to this print, a frightening Death, his skull sprouting snakes, approaches a wealthy young couple who fight him as they protect their riches. In this print a poor, elderly couple have lived a long life and willingly follow a Death, crowned with a wreath, who leads them to the tune of his bagpipe. The Dutch painter Werner van den Valckert created a number of etchings early in his career. Several of these are genre subjects that comment on the foolishness of the world.

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