Two women grieving

John Flaxman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This delicate ink-and-wash drawing of two young women contemplating a fire relates broadly to Flaxman's tomb designs. Since the figures are fully alive and their sense of loss only implied, the work could instead respond to a literary source. During his long stay in Rome (1787–94), the artist drew sets of outline images inspired by the poetic epics of Homer and Hesiod–published as prints, these then helped to spread Neoclassicism across Europe. The refined draftsmanship here suggests a date after Flaxman returned to England and worked as a leading sculptor. The contained poses in full and partial profile, undefined background and use of monochrome all evoke sculpture–the drapery and anatomy evoke classical sources, the rhythmic outlines and attenuated proportions are more medieval.

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