Four Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted Head

Four Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted Head

Claude Gillot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Gillot was primarily a graphic artist whose subjects included the theater and playful bacchanals. This sheet features studies of four figures in heroic costume with a reprise of a helmeted head. The use of delicate watercolor tints situates it within the larger tradition of costume designs for theater, by artists such as Jean Berain. Through his work, Gillot helped to popularize the commedia dell’arte and influenced his pupil, Antoine Watteau, whose fêtes galantes incorporated elements of theater into scenes of aristocratic leisure. Until 2004, the drawing was part of an album originally containing 39 drawings by the artist, all relating to the theater.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Four Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted HeadFour Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted HeadFour Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted HeadFour Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted HeadFour Actors in Heroic Costume, with a Study of a Helmeted Head

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.