Plate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Plate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Honoré Daumier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The news can't have reached Bordeaux yet. Take the post, flog ten horses to death, get there first, go strike a bear and we'll scoop another million for certain... I've got to go to the law courts, we're sentencing a knave who stole ten francs... stole ten francs... thorough rascal.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 18: Robert Macaire, banker and juror, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

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.