Saints Peter and John healing the Sick

Saints Peter and John healing the Sick

Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Parmigianino, one of Italy’s leading Mannerists, was among the first Italian painters to experiment with the printmaking technique of etching, while in Rome in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. For this subject the artist combined two techniques, a fairly uncommon practice in this period. Employing an etched plate printed in black and a woodcut tone block inked in a light pink hue, he achieved a result similar to that of the chiaroscuro woodcut prints he would have seen in Rome. Parmigianino typically collaborated with trained printmakers to execute his designs. This print, however, is believed to be the only work he produced himself using a tone block with etching.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saints Peter and John healing the SickSaints Peter and John healing the SickSaints Peter and John healing the SickSaints Peter and John healing the SickSaints Peter and John healing the Sick

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.