Saint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia Preti

Saint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia Preti

Jean Honoré Fragonard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In March 1761, just before returning to Paris from a five-year stint as a pensioner at the French Academy in Rome, Fragonard was sent to Naples by his friend and patron, Jean-Claude-Richard, the abbé de Saint-Non (1727–1791), to make copies after works of art. He made at least five copies after sections of Mattia Preti's ceiling in the Church of San Pietro a Maiella. One of Preti's major commissions, the ceiling depicted scenes from the lives of Saint Catherine and Saint Celestine V, set into various shaped stucco frames. This sheet is a counterproof, and therefore in reverse direction, of Fragonard's copy (Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena), reworked by the artist in black chalk.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia PretiSaint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia PretiSaint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia PretiSaint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia PretiSaint Celestine V Renouncing the Papacy, after Mattia Preti

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.