A Dutch Gentleman, after Adriaen de Vries

Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jacquemart made this print after the painting (71.63) by De Vries as part of a portfolio of prints celebrating the founding collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In his review of the series, the British critic and etching advocate, Philip Gilbert Hamerton, cited this plate as demonstrating the superiority of the etching medium over other reproductive techniques, such as woodcuts and photographs, in the rich intensity of the blacks achieved.

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