Chaos is Come Again!

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The interior of the Drury Lane Theatre, London collapses during a performance. The view is from the side of the pit with the stage and curtain at left. A gallery falls at right. A few months after this print was published the building designed by Robert Adam in 1776 was demolished and replaced by one designed by Henry Holland.

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