The Adoration of the Magi

Andrea Mantegna

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This engraving, known only in this incomplete state, is one of the earliest unfinished prints to have survived. It reproduces, on the same scale, the right-hand portion of an important painting by the artist, and its odd cropping suggests that a fuller composition may have been originally intended. We do not know why impressions were pulled even though the print was incomplete, but perhaps Mantegna’s fame made them attractive to collectors. The engraving is based on the central panel of Mantegna's triptych in the Uffizi, which dates about 1463-64. It has been formally attributed to Zoan Andrea by Hind (H.V.22.13), while Kristeller (Kristeller, 1901, p.463) and Zucher (TIB.XXV.Comm.98.008) left the attribution to anonymous.

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