Allegory of America, from "The Four Continents"

About this artwork

This compelling allegorical drawing represents America as one of the Four Continents, a popular iconographic series created during the Age of Discovery. Designed by Maerten de Vos (1532-1603), a prominent Flemish painter from Antwerp, and executed by an anonymous Netherlandish artist, the work reflects 16th-century European perceptions of the New World. The drawing employs pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, squared in black chalk for transfer to an engraving. Created when Antwerp domin...

Art Historical Context

This intricate drawing, *Allegory of America* from the popular "Four Continents" series, captures 16th-century Europe's fascination with the newly discovered Americas. Designed by the renowned Flemish painter Maerten de Vos (1532–1603) from Antwerp—a bustling hub of commerce and the Atlantic sugar trade—it portrays America as a symbolic female figure, likely surrounded by exotic animals, bows and arrows, and axes, evoking indigenous peoples and untamed wilderness. Executed by an anonymous Netherlandish artist, the work blends imagination with emerging global awareness during the Age of Discovery. Rendered in pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, and squared in black chalk for transfer to an engraving, the drawing showcases preparatory techniques typical of the period. These designs fueled a wave of prints by Adriaen Collaert around 1590, spreading allegorical visions of distant continents to households across Europe and shaping cultural perceptions of the New World amid colonialism and trade. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, this piece highlights the era's fusion of art and exploration, inviting us to reflect on how Europeans romanticized—and commodified—the Americas through symbolic imagery.