Medea Embarks with Jason (Soudain de nuit avec Jason Medée laissant Colchis en l'Argo est montée), from "Jason and the Golden Fleece"

René Boyvin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 14 of 26. Night scene, with Medea leaving Colchis and boarding the Argo; within an ornate border. One of a set of illustrations to the 'Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d'or', published in Paris in 1563 and engraved by René Boyvin based on drawings by Léonard Thiry. Jason, the famous hero of antiquity, sets off on a quest to find the Golden Fleece which leads him to meet Medea with whom he has a love affair ending in tragedy.

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