Trees by an entrance to a park

Theodosius Forrest

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Forrest trained as an artist under George Lambert, took drawing lessons from Paul Sandby, then followed his father into law. He worked as a solicitor for the Covent Garden Theatre while exhibiting as an amateur at the Royal Academy until shortly before his death. In this rare work, delicate layered washes are used to describe abundant summer foliage within a fenced park. Trees glimpsed through a gate may grow at Hampstead or Windsor. The way the composition is built from contrasting patches of light and shade, with blocks of color left suggestively undefined around the edges, demonstrates the influence of both Paul Sandby and his brother Thomas. Forrest remained particularly close to the latter, accompanying him on sketching tours.

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