Bartholomew Fair

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rowlandson's leading cataloguer Joseph Grego, wrote of this print that, "judging from the caricature, the abolition of fairs in the City must have been a boon to public order and morality. The noise, disorder, and misrule of the festivity are taking place outside the hospital. Boat-swings are revolving, a few...getting into difficulties...there are wandering sellers of sweets, pastry, and such things,...booths for refreshments...drinking stalls where tipplers are taking too much...a reveller who, finding himself overcome with liquor, has laid down in the gutter...There are booths for dancing...and parties of jolly sailors arriving outside coaches....in more than one spot, rings are formed for fair fighting, and both men and women are exhibiting their prowess in the boxing line."

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