The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)

The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)

Winslow Homer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This image of a marching troup of New York militia, dressed in kilts, come from some early unsigned wood engravings that Homer drew for "Harper's Weekly." His biographer William Howe Downes noted that "the portentious year 1861 marks a decisive turning point...now twenty-five years of age, for several years [Homer] had been able to support himself by his black and white work. [For Harper's, Homer] went to Washington, where he drew sketches of Lincoln's inauguration, and afterwards to the front with the first batch of soldier-volunteers." The present subject must either show the troop leaving New York, or arriving in Washington.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)The Seventy Ninth Regiment (Highlanders), New York State Militia (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. 5, p. 329)

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.