Opera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat Boxes

Opera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat Boxes

William Heath ('Paul Pry')

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This fashion caricature represents two women with enormous hats seated in boxes at the theater. In 1829 Heath devoted a series of prints to female dress, focusing on huge feathered hats and puffed sleeves.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Opera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat BoxesOpera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat BoxesOpera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat BoxesOpera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat BoxesOpera Reminiscences, Plate 2: Hat Boxes

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.