Plate 31: Fortune makes one forget one's friends, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Honoré Daumier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

- John, take these 500 F to the minister for the poor of the parish. Be sure to make it quite clear that they came from me. -Yes, Monsieur le Comte.... I forgot to tell Monsieur that this man has come back. - What man? - That poor man who pretends to be an old friend of Monsieur le Comte. His name is Bertrand. - Bertrand? I don't know this person... just tell him that I'm not home.

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