John Milton, Age 21

John Milton, Age 21

George Vertue

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shown aged twenty-one, the poet wears a ruff and is surrounded by an elaborate frame. Below, busts of Homer and Virgil sit over a poem by Dryden. Created as the frontispiece for a volume published by George Vertue in 1731, this is a 1747 reissue with the poem added. The image derives from an anonymous oil portrait now at the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Milton, Age 21John Milton, Age 21John Milton, Age 21John Milton, Age 21John Milton, Age 21

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.