Study for the Astor Library, New York

Study for the Astor Library, New York

Alexander Jackson Davis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This striking design for the Astor Library restates Davis' theme of powerful piers and multistoried "Davisean" windows, while the leaning books in the building's pediment show the architect at his most fanciful. Behind the facade was a large rotunda, a circular reading room, which took its inspiration from the Antique Pantheon, but possibly by way of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford or Thomas Jefferson's invention for the library of the University of Virginia.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Study for the Astor Library, New YorkStudy for the Astor Library, New YorkStudy for the Astor Library, New YorkStudy for the Astor Library, New YorkStudy for the Astor Library, New York

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.