The Patriotick Barber of New York, or the Captain in Suds

Philip Dawe

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this print, issued in London the year before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Captain John Crozer, commander of a British ship, has been recognized in the barbershop of Jacob Vredenburgh, a New York Son of Liberty who refuses to finish shaving him. The subject demonstrates how New Yorkers refused to cooperate with British troops garrisoned in the city from the autumn of 1774. When the story reached England it inspired this print. The following verse is printed below the image: "Then Patriot grand, maintain thy Stand,/ And whilst thou sav'st Americ's Land,/ Preserve the Golden Rule;--/ Forbid the Captains there to roam,/ Half shave them first; then send 'em home,/ Objects of ridicule."

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