Modern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1st

Modern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1st

William Heath ('Paul Pry')

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century women’s fashions in Britain shifted away from a Neoclassical silhouette. Tightly corseted bodices returned and were accentuated with exaggerated puffed sleeves and full round skirts ending above the ankles to display feet in flat slippers. Heads were adorned with “salad plate hats”, wide-brimmed and decorated with ribbons and feathers. Heath worked with the publisher Thomas McLean to create a series of popular etchings that exaggerated aspects of the new style to the point of absurdity. For titles, he often borrowed quotations from Shakespeare; this one is derived from a scene in The Taming of the Shrew (4.3.143). From 1827–29 Heath used the image of a little dandy holding an umbrella to sign prints, seen here at lower left, a reference to Paul Pry, a nosy character in an 1825 play by John Poole.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Modern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1stModern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1stModern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1stModern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1stModern Oddities, by P. Pry Esq., Plate 1st

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.