Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"

Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"

Adriaen Collaert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This late sixteenth-century engraving made in Antwerp became an emblematic image of the New World. Series representing the "four continents" were a popular conceit during the European age of exploration, when atlases were in high demand. New World themes from other prints—cannibalism, conquest, and a female native—repeat here. Vos’s allegorical figure wears an elaborate feather headdress with a bow and arrow and sits on a giant armadillo, with a parrot nearby. While not the first representation of a feather headdress in New World prints, this may have been one of the most influential.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"

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.