A Riding House

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This hand-colored etching pokes fun at a range of a range of physiques and abilities, as men on horseback, directed by a riding master who stands at center, moves around an interior with high windows. Bunbury exhibited a drawing of the subject at the Royal Academy in 1778 (no. 393) and it was etched and published two years later by James Bretherton. The printmaker of this ca. 1799 variation has not been identified, but may be Thomas Rowlandson, who produced dozens of Bunbury-inspired satires.

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