Landscape with a Large Tree

Paul Bril

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Netherlandish painter Paul Bril, whose significant activity took place while he was active in Rome between about 1582 and 1626, was a key figure for landscape painting. He influenced numerous northern artists who traveled to Rome after him. This lively and freely drawn image of a tree is a classic Bril theme. It was randered in layers of gray and black wash but Bril's black chalk underdrawing is also visible in parts, for instance as along the outlines of the tree trunk. This energetically twisting tree harkens back to drawings of single trees by Pieter Bruegel the Elder like the one in the collection of the Royal Library Albert I in Brussels (inv. S.II 113 145; Mielke 19)). Bril could have known drawings by Bruegel because Bril is thought to have worked with Jan Brueghel, the artist's son, who brought with him to Rome some of his father's drawings.

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