Portrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María García

Portrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María García

Manuel Salvador Carmona

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A significant printmaker who worked in Madrid, Salvador Carmona is little known outside Spain today. He made hundreds of prints, among them portraits, of which this is one of the most engaging. The inscription along the bottom records that it depicts his parents. The father, Pedro de Salvador Carmona, died the year the portrait was made, and thus it may be commemorative. In a clever demonstration of illusionism, the print presents the viewer with a visual challenge: it reproduces another engraving, with curling edges that project toward the viewer.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María GarcíaPortrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María GarcíaPortrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María GarcíaPortrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María GarcíaPortrait of Pedro de Salvador Carmona and his wife María García

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.