Sheet from "Iconographie Instructive" with portrait of Benjamin Franklin

Adrien Jarry de Mancy

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An engraved portrait of Benjamin Franklin illustrates this page from Adrien Jarry de Mancy, "Iconographie instructive ou collection de portraits des personnages célèbres de l'histoire moderne, gravées d'après des dessins de M. Devéria et par MM. Allais, Bertonnier, Fontaine, A. Massard, Wedgwood, etc."...1827-29) (An instructive iconography, or collection of portraits of famous people from modern history, engraved after drawings by Mr. Devéria et by Mssrs. Allais, Bertonnier, Fontaine, A. Massard, Wedgwood, etc.). The image is based on a pastel portrait by Duplessis, "the Gray Coat Portrait," ca. 1777-78, now at the New York Public Library (of which there were many later copies).

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