Muff, Handkerchief, and Mask

Muff, Handkerchief, and Mask

Wenceslaus Hollar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small, exquisite still life is one of several etched by Hollar featuring fur muffs. The peripatetic Bohemian printmaker made this piece during his first stay in England in the early 1640s, when he was in the employ of the Earl of Arundel. Hollar’s seductive and highly original image suggests the nearby presence of a fashionable woman who has discarded her luxurious accessories after coming inside from the cold. The fine lines of etching and touches of engraving that express the prickly softness of the fur wore down quickly as Hollar’s copperplates were printed, so rich impressions such as this one are rare.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Muff, Handkerchief, and MaskMuff, Handkerchief, and MaskMuff, Handkerchief, and MaskMuff, Handkerchief, and MaskMuff, Handkerchief, and Mask

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.