River at Norwich

Anonymous, British, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Acquired in 1907 as a watercolor by Thomas Girtin, this work is now considered a copy. It may have been produced at one of the regular evening gatherings hosted by Dr. Thomas Monro in his house in the Adelphi near the Strand. A collector, patron and physician, he invited artists to study watercolors by John Robert Cozens, John Henderson, Edward Dayes and often employed young artists--Girtin and J.M.W. Turner among them--to trace fine examples and add colored washes. The authorship of most "Monro School" works remains open to debate.

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