Survey of Sturgeon Creek, Maine

Survey of Sturgeon Creek, Maine

Anonymous, American, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sketch by an unknown draftsman and dated 1752 relates to land ownership at a Maine colonial settlement located south of Portland. Originally part of the Piscataqua Plantation, the area was known as Sturgeon Creek in the 1630s, renamed the parish of North Kittery in 1713, and finally incorporated as the town of Eliot in 1810.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Survey of Sturgeon Creek, MaineSurvey of Sturgeon Creek, MaineSurvey of Sturgeon Creek, MaineSurvey of Sturgeon Creek, MaineSurvey of Sturgeon Creek, Maine

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.