Divine Justice

James Barry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Based on a drawing now at the Met (2015.44), this print reproduces key figures from Elysium and Tartarus (1777–83), the enormous painting Barry executed for the Society of Arts, London. Barry, who received little recompense for the latter commission, decided to disseminate his ideas through a set of etchings, but he was dissatisfied with a 1792 image (see 2018.353) that necessarily reduced the number of figures in the related painting. In 1802 he conceived of six large prints devoted to key compositional groups, two as a pendant pair: Divine Justice and The Angelic Guards. (the present work and 2016.596). Together, these convey the idea that the greatest legacy of the powerful historical figures portrayed was their patronage of the arts.

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