View of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, Rome

View of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, Rome

Joseph Vernet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vernet was the most admired landscape specialist in eighteenth-century France. He traveled to Italy in the late 1730s, where he remained until 1753, when he was summoned back to France to for a commission from king Louis XV to paint a series of canvases depicting the Ports of France. His style was influenced by earlier masters, like Claude Lorrain, but also deeply indebted to the first-hand study of nature. This drawing of the Caelian Hill in Rome was made around 1750 and part of an album assembled probably in Vienna in the early 19th century. A meticulous distant view of the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo is contrasted by the abstract treatment of rooftops in the foreground.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

View of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, RomeView of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, RomeView of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, RomeView of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, RomeView of the Caelian Hill, Rome, with the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, seen from the Aventine, Rome

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.