Chicago Nominee: "I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest...Where be your gibes now?–Hamlet, Act IV [sic], Scene 1"

Justin H. Howard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A contemporary of American cartoonist Thomas Nast, Justin H. Howard created this caricature of Union general George McClellan, the Democratic nominee in the 1864 presidential campaign, as Hamlet in the famous graveyard scene in act 5 of Shakespeare’s play. Instead of the skull of court jester Yorick, McClellan addresses the head of President Abraham Lincoln, his Republican opponent. Governor Horatio Seymour of New York is cast as Hamlet’s friend Horatio, and the grave digger is a famished Irish immigrant. In 1862 Lincoln removed General McClellan, who had been in command of the Union army, from active duty after he failed to achieve a decisive victory at Antietam—the bloodiest battle in American military history. The caption at the bottom of the image alludes to false newspaper reports that Lincoln had acted with inappropriate levity while touring the Civil War battlefield at Antietam.

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.