An Exhibition

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Loutherbourg moved from Paris to London in 1771 and was employed by David Garrick to transform the sets and lighting effects at the Drury Lane Theatre. During this busy decade he produced caricatures including this humorous take on visitors, possibly at one of the Royal Academy's early displays (that institution used cramped rooms on Pall Mall between 1769 and 1779). Published January 1776, this prints contains figures similar to those found in Loutherbourg's six "Caricatures of the English" (first issued February 1775; see 62.600.556, .557, 2007.49.362). "An Exhibition" was published by another Frenchman, Victor Marie Picot, who had settled in London the previous decade and ran a print shop on St. Martin's Lane.

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