A Grinning Match

A Grinning Match

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Grego describes a 1799 version of this image as designed by Bunbury, and characterizes the scene as "a party of rustics, whose rude features are more rudely burlesqued, are grouped around a barrel to assist in an exhibition of "face-making." The challenge runs thus: "A gold Ring to be Grinned for the frightfu'lest Grinner to be the winner." Mounted on a tub is one of the champions, round his head is the traditional setting for a horse collar, and he is succeeding in making the most fearful grimaces, to the consequent delight of the spectators."

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.