Letter with Sketch of Artist Painting Stage Scenery

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This letter from Pugin relates to stage sets being made for a ballet inspired by Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth," produced at the King's Theatre, London in March 1831. A life-long enthusiast for the theater, the aspiring architect was already an experienced stage carpenter after a season at Covent Garden. Here, he promises the leading scene painters William and Thomas Grieve that he will arrive on Monday at ten to assist with the sets, and insists that it is the pleasure of their company, rather than the thought of financial gain, that compells him. The accompanying sketch depicts a small figure working on a gothic back cloth suspended over the stage from a pulley system. Pugin's diary records that he went on to paint interiors of Cumnor Place and Greenwich Palace for this production, and also supplied costume details.

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