Design for a Frieze

Thomas Stothard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A friend of William Blake and John Flaxman, Stothard worked in a range of media and his linear style was influenced by classical models. This drawing relates to one of a set of four friezes in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace, works that Flaxman designed and Edward Hodges Baily, R.A. (1788-1867) carved in high relief. Responding to the "Wars of the Roses" the work represents pikeman with plumed helmets, trumpeters, and the mythical figure of Bellona whose torches urge opposing groups of archers into combat.

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