A Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II

A Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II

Thomas Chippendale

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Preparatory drawing for Thomas Chippendale's 'Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director'. Published in reverse as plate LII in the third edition of 1762, but created as early as 1761 according to the Act of Parliament on the print itself.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. IIA Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. IIA Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. IIA Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. IIA Lady's Dressing Table, from Chippendale Drawings, Vol. II

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.