The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834

The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834

Honoré Daumier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Daumier, who had served a prison term for a cartoon of 1831 depicting King Louis-Philippe as Rabelais' Gargantua, made this lithograph for the January 9, 1834, issue of La Caricature, a political weekly begun by Charles Philipon in 1830 and closed by the government in 1835.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834

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.