Poster for The Yellow Book, Volume IV

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Printed on yellow paper (this has been trimmed at top and bottom; the missing text would have read "For Sale Here" above, and "Copeland and Day, Boston" below). The sheet is decorated with two images by Aubrey Beardsley and a list of the contents of the Yellow Book, Vol. IV. The image at left represents a seated woman reading in a wing chair. That at lower right shows a shirtless boy dressed in oriental pants offering a flower from an overflowing basket to a lady on a terrace. Text in a panel at upper right: "The Yellow Book, Contents of Vol. IV, January 1895, Literature: I-XXII (list of titles and authors); Art: I-XVI (list of titles and artists, include three by Aubrey Beardsley: XIV: The Mysterious Rose Garden, XV: The Repentence of Mrs.****; XVI: Portrait of Miss Winifred Emery). The image of the woman being offered a flower was used on the cover of The Yellow Book, Vol. IV.

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