Cuckfield (An Excursion to Brighthelmstone)

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of a set of eight aquatints devoted to posting houses on the main road from London to Brighthelmstone (Brighton), together with attractions of the seaside resort, this print represents a fair at Cuckfield, with a signpost on the corner of the main street pointing to London, Brighthelmstone, Tun-Bridge and Lewes. Related text tells us that the village is forty miles from London and, "a fair is held, in September, reported to by a great number of pretty rustic females, and by a multitude of happy swains. From Cuckfield to Brighthelmstone, about 14 miles distant, the country is chearful [sic], and the prospects various and extensive."

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