The Water Carriers

James Harvard Thomas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1889, the British sculptor Thomas moved to Naples to study bronze casting, then settled on Capri. He returned to London in 1906, became a lecturer at the Slade School of Art in 1911, and their first professor of sculpture in 1914. Made during an 1895 visit to Pompeii, this drawing demonstrates the artist's interest in local figures at work, and ability to capture weight and three-dimensionality. In 1909, London's Carfax Gallery, London mounted a solo exhibition of Thomas's work and the Museum acquired this drawing the following year.

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