Portrait of a young girl

Portrait of a young girl

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The subject of this ethereal portrait drawing has not been definitively identified, but her soulful eyes and sensual mouth resemble those of Maria Cassavaetti Zambaco, a British artist of Greek descent with whom Burne-Jones had a passionate, then tortured, affair between 1866 and 1869. After their association ended, the artist used her features to represent temptresses such as Nimue and Phyllis in thematic paintings.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Portrait of a young girlPortrait of a young girlPortrait of a young girlPortrait of a young girlPortrait of a young girl

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.