Unhappy Ghosts Crossing the Styx: In Base-relief

John Doyle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This satire uses a passage from Virgil's Aeneid (VI.126) to comment on contemporary politics. William IV is cast as Charon ferrying former ministers over the Styx and taking their seals of office as tolls. Lord Melbourne has landed and walks away, Lord Duncannon hands his seal to the ferryman, followed by Lord Palmerson and Thomas Spring Rice. The Duke of Wellington at the stern, as Mercury, prevents Lord Brougham from escaping. Quoting Virgil, the Duke reminds the ex-Chancellor how much easier it is to fall than to rise again: "facilis descensus Averni," a reference to the Chancellor's recent speaking tour that lost him the king's favor. In response the Chancellor exclaims "Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo," which can be freely translated as - if I cannot subdue the House of Lords, I will stir up a commotion in the Birmingham Political Union.

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