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.

Because of their fragile nature and susceptibility to fading and discoloration, works on paper can only be exhibited for short periods at a time (approximately three months) under carefully controlled lighting conditions. In order to make the entire collection accessible to the public, works of art not installed in the galleries may be viewed by appointment in the Study Room for Drawings and Prints. In addition, an ever-growing portion of our holdings (currently over 177,000 works) can be explored on The Met’s online database.