Tynemouth Castle, Northumberland

Samuel Buck

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In November 1726 Samuel Buck announced a plan to systematically record ruins throughout England. Distressed that castles, religious foundations, and other antique remains were crumbling away, he proposed to "rescue the mangled remains of these aged & venerable edifices from the inexorable jaws of time." Working with his brother Nathaniel, the artist would eventually produce over four hundred prints recording ruins. The present precisely drawn sheet relates to a print published in "Buck's Antiquities; Or Venerable Remains of Above Four Hundred Castles, Monasteries, Palaces, &c. &c. in England and Wales: With Near One Hundred Views of Cities and Chief Towns" (1726–42). Drawn on the spot, the image offers evidence for the emergence of an antiquarian sensibility in Britain, part of an historical impulse to accurately research and record the past rather than a romantic response to decay.

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