Antigone & Ismene

Alfred George Stevens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small image may be Stevens's first idea for a figural grouping in a mural scheme. It captures the interaction of Antigone and Ismene, daughters of Oedipus who appear in Sophocles play "Antigone" as opposing types. Their differences are brought into focus by the death of their brother Polyneices when their uncle Creon, ruler of Thebes, forbids the body to be retrieved and buried. In response, Ismene urges compliance but Antigone is determined to disobey. Later in the play, Antigone is herself condemned to be buried alive and Ismene offers to share that punishment.

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