"And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince"

"And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince"

Edwin Austin Abbey

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Abbey moved to England in 1878 to research illustrations to historical poems for Harper's and settled there permanently in 1883. This drawing is one of a series that responds to "Everyday Characters," poems by the British poet W. Mackworth Praed. We see the elderly bachelor Quince, a denizen of a West Country village, feeding his horse. The related stanza reads: For full ten years his pointer Speed Had couched beneath her master's table; For twice ten years his old white steed Had fattened in his master's stable; Old Quince averred, upon his troth, They were the ugliest beasts in Devon; And none knew why he fed them both, With his own hands, six days in seven. Reproduced as a wood engraving, the image appeared in Harper's "New Montly Magazine," vol. 79 (June 1886), p. 29.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince""And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince""And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince""And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince""And none knew why he fed them both with his own hands," illustration to "Quince"

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.