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Allegory of Art

1609
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 690
Curving strokes of the pen and touches of opaque white lend the two women in this drawing a palpable corporeal presence—less so the statuette that one of them holds. Could this be a clever articulation of the paragone, or rivalry, between painting and sculpture? Such a theme might have amused the drawing’s dedicatee, whom the artist references with the word "MUSICA," an acrostic of the Latin phrase meo unico sincero intimo carissimo amico (to my sincerest and closest dear friend).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Allegory of Art
  • Artist: Peter Schmidt von Lichtenberg (German, Lichtenberg 1585–1620 Breslau)
  • Date: 1609
  • Medium: Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, heightened with white on yellow prepared paper
  • Dimensions: sheet: 7 1/2 x 5 11/16 in. (19 x 14.5 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Sarah and Werner H. Kramarsky Gift, 1998
  • Object Number: 1998.197
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Design for a Wall Panel or Ceiling with The Virgin and Saints Interceding before Christ for the Souls of the Lost, Johann Baptist Enderle German, Pen and black ink, watercolor and gouache on laid paper
Design for a Wall Panel or Ceiling with The Virgin and Saints Interceding before Christ for the Souls of the Lost
Johann Baptist Enderle
1771 or before
Border Designs for the Mortlake "Acts of the Apostles" Tapestries, Franz Cleyn German, Watercolor with white heightening, details in pen and ink and graphite
Border Designs for the Mortlake "Acts of the Apostles" Tapestries
Franz Cleyn
ca. 1626–36
An Allegory of Fortune with Two River Gods, Hans Jakob Ebelmann German, Pen and black ink and gray and blue wash over black chalk
An Allegory of Fortune with Two River Gods
Hans Jakob Ebelmann
1624
Allegory of the Transience of Life, Christian Richter German, Pen and ink, brush and brown, blue and pink wash, heightened with white gouache
Allegory of the Transience of Life
Christian Richter
1618
A tulip, a butterfly of the species Arctia caja (garden tiger moth), and a beetle (possibly a longhorn), Barbara Regina Dietzsch German, Opaque and transparent watercolor on parchment; partial framing lines in metallic gold paint (trimmed at upper edge)
A tulip, a butterfly of the species Arctia caja (garden tiger moth), and a beetle (possibly a longhorn)
Barbara Regina Dietzsch
ca. 1750-60

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