The State Watchman Discovered by the Genius of Britain Studying Plans for the Reduction of America

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rowlandson's name does not appear on this print, but the scholar Dorothy George attributed it to him on the basis of style. The image responds to the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War. Either George III (or his prime minister Lord North) dozes at center on a sofa near the alarmed figure of Britannia who asks, "Am I thus Protected?" If the sleeper is North, the small man who says "Hello Neighbour! what are you asleep" may represent Sir Grey Parole, designated to sit next to North in Parliament and wake the minister during long debates, if he dozed off.

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