Head of an Arab

Isidore Pils

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pils spent two years living in the Kabylie region of Northern Algeria, studying the landscape and people in preparation for a commission commemorating the visit of Emperor Napoléon III and Empress Eugénie to the area in 1860. This pastel drawing of a distinguished sitter wearing a voluminous burnous (hooded cloak) was likely intended as an independent work based on its large scale and the fact that the artist signed the sheet.

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