The Rival Chancellors

The Rival Chancellors

John Doyle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this political satire Lord Brougham and the Duke of Gloucester face one another across a dining table. The duke at right says, "My friends all remark my great partiality for Tongue. – What is your dish?" At left, Brougham says "I have got it here before me,– a most excellent Calf's Head." Brougham was Lord-Chancellor of England and the Duke of Gloucester was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.