Study of Three Fritillaries

Herman Saftleven II

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This delicate rendering of three fritillaries is one of twenty-seven known drawings of flowers and plants that Saftleven created towards the end of his life. Agneta Block (1629-1704), a niece by marriage of the Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel, commissioned Saftleven as well as a number of other artists to make drawings of the enormous collection of plants and flowers in her countryhouse on the river Vecht called Vijverhof. They were stored in several albums and the known drawings make up only a fraction of the original group. She inscribed the plant's Latin name on the verso of each drawing and on this sheet the inscription "Fritillaria rara specii variae" can be seen through the backing. The Met has four drawings by Saftleven including another drawing of flowers (2008.46) which dates to three years earlier and does not display the shadows that these do.

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