Hugh Williamson, M.D., L.L.D. (1735–1819)

Asher Brown Durand

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is one of nineteen prints that Durand engraved for Herring and Longacre's "National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans," published in 1835. Born in West Nottingham, Pennsylvania, Williamson trained as a Presbyterian minister, then pursued medical studies in Europe. After returning to Philadelphia, he practiced medicine, pursued scientific interests and became a member of the American Philosophical Society. After witnessing the Boston Tea Party, he traveled to London where he became a close friend of Benjamin Franklin. In 1776 he returned to the United States, settled in North Carolina and became surgeon-general of state troops. After the war, he and served two terms in the U.S. Congress, moved to New York and devoted his later years to writing educational, economic, historical, and scientific works.

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