Thomas Rowlandson, aged 70

John Thomas 'Antiquity' Smith

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This image captures Rowlandson near the end of his life, drawing in an album in the Print Room of the British Museum. John Thomas Smith, keeper of prints and drawings at the museum since 1816, made the portrait of his friend.

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