The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Waterman Lilly Ormsby

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Though restrained in feeling, this print describes a profound revolutionary moment. It affirms the right of the original thirteen American colonies to separate from Great Britain—an unprecedented challenge to royal authority. The title is slightly misleading since what we actually witness is the drafters of the Declaration of Independence—John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—presenting the text to the Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia on June 28, 1776, six days before ratification. Forty-two of the eventual sixty-two signers appear here portrayed from life. Based on Trumbull’s famous painting of 1786, the print was engraved to mark the centenary of the United States.

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