Three Covered Tankards

Three Covered Tankards

Anonymous, British, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Peg tankards, identified here by an engraved title, were shared drinking vessels whose insides were fitted with wooden pegs or nails that divided the ale they held into eighths. A "peg law" introduced by Edgar I, who ruled England from 959 to 975 AD, restricted drinkers to one portion of the contents. If they drank more they would be fined. This print is mounted with a 16th century stipple engraving of a elaborately decorated tankard

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.