The Romp

R. Rushworth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rushworth here depicts a scene in the second act of T. A. Lloyd's play, "The Romp" where Priscilla Tomboy prepares too box Young Cockney, their altercation observed by Captain Sightley and Miss La Blond. In her first London season, the young Dorothea Jordan's performance as the boisterous West Indian heiress at the Drury Lane Theatre from October 18, 1785 helped ensure the play's success. James William Dodd played Young Cockney, William Barrymore played Sightley (both characters show romantic interest in Priscilla in the play), and Miss Barnes played Miss La Blond (the latter's off-stage career as a milliner perhaps suggested by her large hat). The drama's full title was "The Romp. A Musical Entertainment in Two Acts, Altered from 'Love in the City' by Mr. [Isaac] Bickerstaff." Born into an Anglo-Irish family with multiple stage connections, Jordan soon became one of London's leading comic actresses. In 1791 she would begin a twenty-year relationship with William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV).

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