Seventh Ward Beggars

Henry R. Robinson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This satire criticizes President Andrew Jackson’s decision in 1832 to dissolve the Bank of the United States. From 1833, the president and his cabinet distributed government funds through "pet" state banks and, according to this print, used the system to solicit kickbacks. Kneeling bankers here implore a king-like Jackson, who holds a scepter and sits on bales of surplus cash, for funds. New York bankers were affected by this new arrangement, and the city’s Seventh Ward Bank appears in the background. The man dressed in a brown suit is identified as "a spy" for the Courier & Enquirer, a New York newspaper that reported Washington political news in detail and whose editor turned against Jacksonian populism.

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