Common-Wealth, The Colossus

Anonymous, British, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A caricature of William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham, represented as a Colossus balanced on stilts that cross the Atlantic ocean. One of these is marked "Sedition," has hooks on the end and fishes for colonists near New York. The other, marked "Popularity," rests on the Royal Exchange. The figure is supported by crutches, one marked "Pension" and the other hovering over St. Stephen's Chapel–the debating chamber of the House of Commons where Pitt had spent most of his political career. When this print was made, he had just been made Earl of Chatham and left the Commons for the House of Lords. In the background Ireland is represented, with a small figure rising out of the city of Dublin, saying: "Ah by Jesus, we will be independent too". This work is a reissue of a print first published by T. Ewart in 1766.

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