David and Goliath, after a Capital in Vézelay Abbey

Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A sketch in graphite of the biblical figures David and Goliath portrayed in medieval garb. The sketch is inspired by a carving on a capital in the medieval cathedral at Vézeley. David, at left, brandishes a sling shot while Goliath, wearing chain mail, holds a shield and a spear. Viollet-le-duc studied architecture as well as geology and was responsible for the, sometimes creative, restoration of many medieval buildings This quick sketch, probably made in a sketchbook, depicts two figures carved on the capital of a column in the Vézeley Cathedral, a church in Burgundy that he was charged with restoring in 1840..

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art