Guided discovery path
Follow a line
What happens when you trace a single contour, burin groove, or graphite stroke from edge to edge?
6 works across collections
National Gallery of Art / Washington, D.C.
What happens when a surface is carved, remounted, or cut for printing?
A marble child turns slightly to one side. An ancient stone cup sits inside a twelfth-century silver setting. A boxwood block holds the carved reliefs that precede a printed sheet. Start with what the material itself records.
Browse 100 selected works →Have five minutes? / An Artologium looking sequence
From stone to printing block
Three works, three pauses. These questions invite close looking; they do not propose a historical connection between the objects.
A Little BoyDesiderio da Settignano · 1455/1460National Gallery of Art · CC0 Full supplied image / A looking promptOriginal museum record ↗Pleats held in marble.
Across the chest, shallow carved channels gather at the shoulder clasp and fan downward. The stone stays still while the uneven spacing of the folds suggests a body that has just shifted.
01 / Turn
A Little Boy
Notice the slight turn of the head against the pleated tunic. Where does carved stone begin to read like soft cloth?
Look closely & read the record →
Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-DenisFrench 12th Century (mounting); Alexandrian 2nd/1st Century B.C.(cup) · 2nd/1st century B.C. (cup); 1137-1140 (mounting)National Gallery of Art · CC0 02 / Separate
Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis
Separate the carved sardonyx cup from the gilded silver mounting around it. How do two eras share a single object?
Look closely & read the record →![Two Title Pages for "Le Sourire" (Les deux titres du Sourire) [verso] — Technical Material by Paul Gauguin. boxwood woodcut block.](/images/catalogue/nga-4877-two-title-pages-for-le-sourire-les-deux-titres-du-sourire-verso-3e9930357059.jpg)
Two Title Pages for “Le Sourire” (woodcut block)Paul Gauguin · 1899National Gallery of Art · CC0 03 / Reverse
Two Title Pages for “Le Sourire” (woodcut block)
Read the reversed letters and carved ridges in the boxwood. What can you see on the block that an inked impression would change?
Look closely & read the record →
Cross-collection routes & claim boundaries
Where this collection meets the rest of the site.
Current Afterlives dossiers cite specific records from The Met, Cleveland, and Chicago. Works from National Gallery of Art participate directly in our guided discovery paths and cross-collection record comparisons without implying unverified historical transmission.
Guided discovery path
Follow the fold
How do carvers, sculptors, engravers, and draughtsmen turn the weight of cloth into volume and emotion?
5 works across collections
Guided discovery path
Objects that lived twice
What can we learn from objects that were remounted, carved on both sides, cancelled, or broken and rejoined?
5 works across collections
What is here / 100 selected works
A partial view.
An open door.
Our 100-work selection spans panel paintings, Renaissance sculpture, decorative vessels, drawings, prints and carved printing blocks. Each image is verified under the Gallery’s open-access policy; counts reflect only our reviewed selection.
Across collections / 02
Two Cancelled Copper Plates
Two surviving Whistler copper plates, scored with cancelling lines so no further edition could be pulled—held in two Washington collections across the National Mall.
National Gallery of Art1943.3.1730
National Museum of Asian ArtF1902.132
Collection sources & reuse
Every selected image links to its museum record and CC0 dedication. The image’s source control includes its accession, original file and credit.