The Flood

François-Nicolas Chifflart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chifflart acheived early success in his career, winning the Prix de Rome in 1851. He went on to specialize in printmaking, playing a leading role in the French etching revival in the second half of the century. Throughout his artistic practice, the human body was Chifflart's primary means of expressing ideas and emotion. Although the subject of this preparaotry drawing and the related painting is enigmatic, the despondent expression of the primary figure conveys a sense of tragedy.

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