John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of Waterford

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of Waterford

James Basire, the elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Valiant service as a general during the reign of King Henry VI earned John Talbot the nicknames “Terror of the French” and the “English Achilles.” This print is based on a painting at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire, a work that Horace Walpole, the eighteenth-century aesthete and collector, declared to be one of the oldest in England. As a second son, the sitter was born plain John Talbot. He gradually gained titles -- referenced here through the heraldry on his mantle -- through two marriages, and by inheriting them from a cousin, and infant niece.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of WaterfordJohn Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of WaterfordJohn Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of WaterfordJohn Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of WaterfordJohn Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and 1st Earl of Waterford

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.