The Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from Massachusetts

The Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from Massachusetts

John Norman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A bust length portrait of Samuel Adams, within an oval frame, set over a plinth engraved with two emblems: a scales hanging from an olive branch, and a snake with its tail around the handle of a mirror. Published as an Illustration in: "An impartial history of the war in America, between Great Britain and the United States, from its commencement to the end of the war..." Boston, printed by Nathaniel Coverly and Robert Hodge, 1781, v. 1, p. 193.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from MassachusettsThe Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from MassachusettsThe Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from MassachusettsThe Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from MassachusettsThe Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq., First Delegate to Congress from Massachusetts

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.