Beauty and the Beast

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A setting reminiscent of classical fable is used here to dramatize a moral dilemma relevant to the artist's day and to ours. A male satyr-peddler offers his treasures to a lovely woman. Her indecision about how to respond to his advances distresses an admirer who watches from a distance. The message is clear. Wealth is a powerful temptation to youthful beauty. The rapid execution and rough washes indicate the drawing was conceived as a preliminary study.

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