From Sir William Hamilton's Collection

From Sir William Hamilton's Collection

James Gillray

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This caricature of Admiral Horatio Nelson gives the subject a vase-shaped body and shows him from behind, standing upon a chipped base. His wig has been turned into the lid. The image was once thought to represent William Hamilton but recent scholarship has convincingly established that it actually shows Nelson, who was a close friend of Hamilton's and became the lover of the latter's wife, Lady Emma Hamilton.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.