Miss Mary Cruikshank, only sister of James Cruikshank

John Downman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This image captures the fashionable daytime wear of young women in Britain around 1780. A simple white gown is adorned by a large blue bow affixed at the waist, with a second wide ribbon used to decorate the large loose cap. Downman placed his subject against a wall, to accentuate her profile, but opened up the image at left with a landscape view. Grapevines hanging from above suggest summer warmth.

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