Two Costume Designs or Portrait Types

Two Costume Designs or Portrait Types

Anonymous, French, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Page with two round portraits. The portrait on the left is done in green tones and depicts the frontal view of a woman whose head is turned towards the right. She is wearing a striped bodice or jacket. She has a tall top hat with a ribbon and feathers. She is holding a fur muff with a ribbon. The portrait on the right is rendered in violet and green tones. It shows a woman turned towards the left with her head tilted towards her left shoulder. Her right arm reaches out towards the left. She wears a dress with a tight bodice and wide skirt. A blue ribbon is tied at her waist and she has white ruffled cuffs at her elbows. She has a large hat with tall feathers and a bow.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait TypesTwo Costume Designs or Portrait Types

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.