A Girl Singing Ballads By a Paper Lanthorn

James Watson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here, a young woman uses a candle shielded by a paper wrapper to illuminate printed song sheets held in her left hand. Considering the subject—a street vendor advertising bawdy lyrics sold for boisterous communal song in taverns and coffeehouses—the mood is hushed and still. The paper lantern covers the woman's mouth, revealing only a glimpse of lip, and her covered body seems at odds with her profession, which suggests loose virtue. Light and design direct our focus toward one almond-shaped eye above the glowing lantern. These essentials—an eye that sees, a lantern that illuminates text—turn the scene on one level into an allegory of sight.

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