Scenes from the Winter's Tale

Scenes from the Winter's Tale

William Shakespeare

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Imitating Greek vase painting, the elaborate colored lithographs in this volume illustrate Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale." The images were a joint effort with figures by Warren and the ornamental borders by Jones, the style suggested by the play which contains characters with Greek names, and includes a visit to Delphic oracle to determine the innocence of Polixenes's queen, Hermione. Twenty-three two-page spreads pair neoclassical images within decorative frames with quotations from the text. The page shown here responds to the moment when the Old Shepherd finds baby Perdita in act 3, scene 3, during a thunderstorm.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scenes from the Winter's TaleScenes from the Winter's TaleScenes from the Winter's TaleScenes from the Winter's TaleScenes from the Winter's Tale

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.