Ophelia (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4)

Francesco Bartolozzi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ophelia appears in act 4 of Shakespeare's play, her mind unhinged by her father's murder. Singing nonsense rhymes, she distributes herbs to the king, queen and her brother then, soon afterward, slips into a stream while picking flowers, and drowns. Gertrude, the queen describes this tragedy thus: There with fantastic garlands did she make, Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.... There, on the pendent bough her coronet weeds, Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself, fell in the weeping book... Bartolozzi's engraving, based on a drawing by Nixon, combines elements from both episodes to characterize Ophelia's tragic end.

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