The Races

Edouard Manet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the Second Empire, horseracing was in vogue and the racetrack at Longchamps became a gathering place for fashionable society. A frequent subject of articles in the popular press and of many popular prints, the races drew an elegant crowd of aristocrats and wealthy prostitutes who mingled with bookmakers and bettors. Manet's print is distinctive for its dramatic departure from the traditional lateral view of the horses in favor of a radically foreshortened frontal view of the animals galloping directly toward the spectator posted at one of the curves.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art