The Borough Mongers Strangled in the Tower

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sir Francis Burdett stands in a stone archway, gripping the necks of "borough-mongers" in each hand. The man at right has a paper in his pocket that says, "Burrows in Cornwall Bought an Sold Apply to" and he holds a bag of "Extortion Money" while a bag inscribed "Bribery and Corruption" drops from his other hand. The other man has a paper in his pocket that says, "Rotten Bourough to be Disposed of" and has dropped money bags inscribed "Rapine" and "Drainings from the hard hand of the industrious Poor." Another man lies on the ground at right.

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