The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.

The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.

Currier & Ives

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two riverboats, Robert E. Lee at left and Natchez at right, race from the right background to the left foreground.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race–From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870–Between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon and Natchez Captain Leathers–Won by the R.E. Lee, Time: 3 Days 18 Hours and 30 Minutes; Distance 1210 Miles.

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.