Portrait of William Dobson

Josias English

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print represents a native-born painter discovered by Van Dyck, who became Serjeant-Painter to Charles I in 1641, and was styled the “English Tintoretto.” The image derives from a triple portrait (now Duke of Northumberland), where Dobson placed himself between Sir Charles Cotterell and a figure identified as Nicholas Lanier. That painting was made shortly before the artist's early death and the publisher Thomas Rowlett likely intended this etching as a memorial. Josias English, the etcher, also made prints after Francis Cleyn and was employed at the Mortlake tapestry works.

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