Englishmen in November, Frenchmen in November

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Issued in London at the height of the American Revolution, this print summarizes the situation in 1779 from Britain’s point of view. As in traditional allegories, the figures represent specific nations, but their dramatic interaction anticipates the new kind of satire soon to come from Rowlandson and Gillray. John Bull stands at the center as an inattentive military volunteer dozing against a staff topped with Britannia’s attribute, the cap of Liberty. He is being attacked from all sides. An Indian, traditional emblem of America, takes Liberty’s cap in a reference to the Declaration of Independence by the Thirteen Colonies in 1776. A Dutch toper slyly steals John Bull’s purse while France is represented by an emaciated dandy restrained by a rugged Highlander, a reminder that Scottish volunteers helped make up for the British army’s poor state of preparation.

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