Robert Lehman Collection VII

Early European art was a consuming interest of both Robert Lehman and his father, Philip Lehman, an interest reflected in the remarkable number and quality of drawings they owned from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In addition to an important group of early German drawings, the collection includes aSaint Paulfrom a series associated with Jan van Eyck and the famousScupstoelfrom the circle of Rogier van der Weyden, the only design for a decorative sculpture to survive from the fifteenth century. The great artists of the seventeenth century, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Claude Lorrain, and Rembrandt among them, are also represented, Rembrandt by seven drawings, including the large study of Leonardo'sLast Supperthat would stay in his mind all through his career, whenever he depicted groups of figures conversing with each other. Drawings by Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoreacute; Fragonard, and Gabriel de Saint-Aubin are among the many from eighteenth-century France. This volume is the ninth to be published in a projected series of sixteen that will catalogue the entire Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum. It discusses all 140 drawings at length, placing each in its art historical setting and complementing the discussion with comparative illustrations of related works.