The Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the Pitt

The Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the Pitt

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Maire Louise, Empress of France, swinging in a boat swing and teasing Napoleon at right, who is walking away from her.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the PittThe Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the PittThe Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the PittThe Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the PittThe Dunghill Cock and Game Pullet or Boney Beat Out of the Pitt

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.