An Allegory of Lyric Poetry

An Allegory of Lyric Poetry

Marie Gabrielle Capet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Marie Gabrielle Capet was a devoted student of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, whose full-length self-portrait with two students (53.225.5) hangs in the European Paintings galleries. In this delicate black and white chalk drawing she copies an over-door painting of her teacher’s husband, François André Vincent, today in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich (inv. 1300). The subject is an allegory of lyric poetry, poetry meant to be sung with musical accompaniment.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An Allegory of Lyric PoetryAn Allegory of Lyric PoetryAn Allegory of Lyric PoetryAn Allegory of Lyric PoetryAn Allegory of Lyric Poetry

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.