Newgate Chapel

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Operating under the jurisdiction of the City of London, Newgate Prison stood next to the Old Bailey courthouse, just outside the former city wall. Designed by George Dance, the forbidding prison opened in 1778 and was demolished in 1902. In addition to housing debtors, it served as a holding pen for those awaiting trial, and for condemned prisoners. This view of the prison chapel records how, on the Sunday before a hanging, condemned prisoners would sit around a coffin to listen to their last sermon. They did not need the tipstaffs, sitting upstairs, to keep them awake.

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