Central Park Goat Carriage (Souvenir Postcard)

Anonymous, American, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This souvenir postcard shows two goats pulling five children in a minature carriage, with a uniformed attendant walking along side. A boy drives seated next to a girl on the box, both well dressed, and two girls and a boy sit in the back. Goat rides were offered to children in the vicinity of the Mall between 1869 and the early twentieth century (also see a related but less realistic lithograph by Henry Schile and George Schlegel, published 1873, "Preparing for a Drive", 54.90.1077).

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