Laban Searching for his Household Gods

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin was a creative and idiosyncratic printmaker. He etched about 50 plates, often working them through multiple states and rarely printing them in large editions.This impression is an early state; it has no inscriptions and lacks some of the hatching added to later states. This print depicts a scene from Genesis (24-31), where Rachel hides the stolen household gods from her father, who has broken his promise to Jacob. The composition records Saint-Aubin's submission to the grand prix competition in 1753, and is thus one of his earliest efforts at printmaking.

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