A Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis Burdett

A Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis Burdett

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An 1811 reissue of a print first published in 1810. A scene of drunken disorder at a dinner of men, all elderly except for a young man who dances atop the table. Most of the men fight savagely with fists, bottles, and fire irons.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis BurdettA Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis BurdettA Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis BurdettA Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis BurdettA Rough Sketch of the Times as Delineated by Sir Francis Burdett

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.