The Rival Richards, or Sheakspear in Danger

William Heath ('Paul Pry')

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two tragic actors Edmund Kean and Charles Mayne Young are here satirized struggling to control Shakespeare. Both are dressed as Richard III to indicate their rivalry on the London stage in that part. Behind Kean at left is the Drury Lane Theatre with Covent Garden at right behind Young. The latter's more declamatory style gave him the edge as the city's leading tragedian until Kean's more natural approach took the public's fancy after his 1807 debut. Heath made this print around the time he turned twenty.

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