Dandies in Rotten Row

William Heath ('Paul Pry')

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rotten Row was the nickname for a road established along the southern edge of Hyde Park where fashionable Londoners paraded their carriages or rode on horseback. Men in particular used the site to display riding skills and show off the latest fashions. These dandies wear either spurred boots with riding britches, or ultra-fashionable short, wide-legged trousers. Their restrictive tailcoats have exaggerated narrow waists and wide lapels, but the humor is chiefly directed at their collars. The extended necks of these riders are so stiffly encased that their heads actually tilt backwards. With obscured vision, they are tossed about like ragdolls by their mounts. Subservience to fashion has turned these horsemen into ludicrous examples of folly.

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