Vaux-hall

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Like his predecessor William Hogarth, Rowlandson satirized Regency society in all its squalor and splendor. At this evening outdoor concert in the poshest of London's pleasure gardens, he turned the fashionable crowd of spectators into the object of amusement. In the foreground, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and her sister Lady Duncannon stand arm in arm while, at right, the Prince of Wales whispers to his mistress Mary "Perdita" Robinson. Jukes and Pollard effectively captured in aquatint the delicate tonal gradations and animated line of Rowlandson's lively watercolor.

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