Major General John Sullivan

Major General John Sullivan

Anonymous, British, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The son of Irish immigrants, Sullivan was elected to the Continental Congress, served as a major general in the Continental army during the American Revolution, and later became governor of New Hampshire. This mezzotint portrait published in London shortly after the Declaration of Independence, shows him holding a spontoon (or half pike) and wearing a sword.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.