Portrait of Martin Luther

Portrait of Martin Luther

Johann Michael Püchler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Coming from a family of engravers and calligraphers, Püchler created numerous portraits of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other religious figures using virtuosic micrography. Made after a likeness by the sixteenthcentury artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, this portrait contains text from the Bible and perhaps from Luther’s own Ninety-Five Theses. Püchler’s style of micrography, forming the hair out of swirling lines of text, was incredibly influential to Buchinger, who may have come across Püchler and his prints in Nuremberg, where Püchler is known to have worked.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.