Philip Hobby Knight, after Holbein

John Smart Jr.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Son to the miniature painter John Smart (1742–1811), John Smart Jr. here portrays a courtier who served Henry VIII as ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The image derives from a drawing made by Han Holbein the Younger, one of a series that record figures associated with the English court between 1532 and 1543. Smart did not work from the original, however, but copied a stipple engraving by Francesco Bartolozzi published in 1796, part of a series printed on pink paper titled "Imitations of Original Drawings by Holbein, in the Collection of His Majesty, for the Portraits of Illustrious Persons in the Court of Henry VIII" where the portrait of Philip Hoby is plate 39. Smart's drawing demonstrates not only skilled draftsmanship but rising antiquarian interest in England and renew appreciation for Holbein's records of the Tudor period.

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