Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"

Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"

Marcellin Desboutin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Desboutin's portrait accompanied the catalogue raisonné of the prints of Jacquemart by Louis Gonse (1846–1921) published in eight parts between 1875 and 1880. This was part of a series dealing with contemporary printmakers: "Les Graveurs Contemporains." Jacquemart was a prolific etcher who worked extensively for leading French art periodicals, including the "Gazette des Beaux-Arts" and "L'Art", reproducing particularly sculpture and decorative arts. He was a founding member of both the Société des Aquafortistes and the Société des Aquarellistes, and his reputation extended to the United States where he undertook work in 1871 for the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"Portrait of Jules Jacquemart, from "Gazette des Beaux-Arts"

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.