Plate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Plate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Honoré Daumier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here are my conditions. You make me out a bill of exchange for 40'000 Fr. and I'll give you 25 Fr. in cash, 3'000 Fr. worth of white mustard and articulated clogs, 3'000 Fr. worth of chips, a carriage wheel, two cows, four shares in Physionotype and a quintal of useful facts... I don't have any other assets in hand, but these are worth their weight in gold.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 4: Robert Macaire, discount broker, 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.