The Hall and Stair Case, British Museum

The Hall and Stair Case, British Museum

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The British Museum was founded in 1753 and occupied, as its first home, the late seventeenth-century former private residence Montagu House. Here Rowlandson depicts the main staircase and entrance hall, with a painted ceiling by Charles de La Fosse (1636–1716) depicting "Phaeton Demanding the Chariot of the Sun." The French artist was employed to work at the property from 1690–92. The rapidly growing collection meant that Montagu House had to be gradually demolished early in the nineteenth century to make way for the present building designed by Robert Smirke (1780–1867). This print comes from a series devoted to prominent London landmarks and provides a record of one of the city's lost spaces.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Hall and Stair Case, British MuseumThe Hall and Stair Case, British MuseumThe Hall and Stair Case, British MuseumThe Hall and Stair Case, British MuseumThe Hall and Stair Case, British Museum

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.