Address-card of the printseller, Rochoux
Charles Meryon
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The print publisher and dealer Armand Rochoux commissioned Meryon to design this trade card, for which the etcher created complementary plates that could be inked and printed in varying color combinations (26.28.1bis and 47.51.3). The artist incorporated motifs related to the location of the print shop, which was on the quay near the Palais de Justice; the gothic gateway of that building crowns the design. Allegories of the River Seine and its tributary, the Marne, sit on either side and the monument to the French king Henri IV (r. 1589–1610) on the Pont-Neuf bridge stands below.
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.