Trade Card for A. Salmon, Printer (Imprimeur)

Anonymous, French, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This late nineteenth-century trade card reproducing Rembrandt’s self-portrait demonstrates the long legacy of the Dutch etcher as a model for artistic printing. Alfred Salmon opened his printing business in 1863, but the inclusion here of the name of his son-in-law, Auguste Porcabeuf, suggests that this card dates from about 1894, when he took over the enterprise.

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