Margaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury

Margaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury

James Basire, the elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This printed portrait of Margaret, second wife to John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, derives from a painting at Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire. Horace Walpole, the eighteenth-century aesthete and collector, declared that work to be one of the oldest in England. Heraldic devices on the countess's cloak refer to her husband's family the Talbots, and to the countess's status independent status as heir to Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Margaret Talbot, Countess of ShrewsburyMargaret Talbot, Countess of ShrewsburyMargaret Talbot, Countess of ShrewsburyMargaret Talbot, Countess of ShrewsburyMargaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury

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.