Clarence's Dream (Shakespeare, Richard III, Act 1, Scene 4)

William Blake

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

When just seventeen, Blake engraved this design by Stothard for William Enfield's "The Speaker, or Miscellaneous Pieces Selected from the Best English Writers." Kneeling in the foreground, the Duke of Clarence looks over his shoulder at an accusing spirit chillingly described in Shakespeare's Richard III: Then came wand'ring by, A shadow like an Angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd aloud: "Clarence is come, false, fleeting perjur'd Clarence, That stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury, Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!"

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