Pendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an Instrument

Pendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an Instrument

Jean Toutin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean I Toutin often combined his designs for goldsmiths work with figurative scenes that do not always seem to relate directly, but make his sheets all the more attractive. The current sheet, from a series dated 1619, shows a pendant shaped like a beetle, its back is covered in Schweifwerk ornament which was to be executed in enamel. Two different types of beetles are depicted on either side, presumably to show possible variations in the shape of the pendant. The scene below portrays a young man playing an instrument while sitting in the shade of a tree. A man and a woman are standing close by and seem to listen to his music.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Pendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an InstrumentPendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an InstrumentPendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an InstrumentPendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an InstrumentPendant Shaped like a Beetle with a Couple and a Young Man Playing an Instrument

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.