The Good Shepherd
Medium
Pen and black ink and brush and gray wash
Dimensions
sheet: 8 3/4 x 6 3/16 in. (22.2 x 15.7 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Charles and Jessie Price Gift, 2005
Accession Number
2005.160
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the serene drawing *The Good Shepherd*, created by Gottfried Eichler Younger between 1715 1770, visitors encounter a delicate rendering of the biblical Jesus as the compassionate shepherd from John 10:11. Eichler, a German artist active in the Rococo era, employs pen and black ink with brush and gray wash on a modest sheet measuring 8 3/4 x 6 3/16 inches. This intimate scale invites close contemplation, evoking the devotional art popular in 18th-century Catholic Europe, where such imagery reinforced faith amid the Counter-Reformation's lingering influence. The medium's subtlety shines here...