David Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in Rome

David Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in Rome

Anonymous, Italian

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This image was made while the couple lived in Rome, where Maitland Armstrong had been sent in 1869 as American Consul to the Papal States, Mrs. Armstrong wears a 15th century style gown and her husband a doublet jacket and hose, costumes reputedly inspired by a painting by Carpaccio. The occasion was a ball held to raise funds to relieve victims of a devasting flood of the Tiber that took place December 26, 1870. Armstrong and two artist friends, Frederic Crowninshield and Charles Caryl Coleman, both of whom lived in Rome at the time, formed the organizing committee.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

David Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in RomeDavid Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in RomeDavid Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in RomeDavid Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in RomeDavid Maitland Armstrong and Helen Neilson Armstrong in 15th-century Style Fancy Dress in Rome

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.