Boneys Broken Bridge

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A scene with Napoleon standing on a river bank at left, pointing to the fragments of a stone bridge. One of his officers bows towards him and says, "With all due defference to your little Majesty—it was the Austrian Fire Boats that destroyed the Bridge." Napoleon responds, "Ah! who is it that dares contradict me, I say it was some floating timber, and the high swell of the river, that Caused the Shocking Accident." Austrian soldiers are gathered across the river at right, with the Archduke Charles on his horse beside them. They sing a parody of the nursery rhyme on London Bridge: "Boneys Bridge is broken down Dance over the Lady Lea Boneys Bridge is broken down By an Arch-Duke—ee"

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