Kicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a Beadle

Kicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a Beadle

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A beadle grasps onto the side of an overturned wheelbarrow, from which black puddings, a basket, and scales have fallen onto the ground. A woman grabs the man's nose and prepares to punch him.Another woman prepares to hit him with a basket at right. Spectators watch amusedly.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a BeadleKicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a BeadleKicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a BeadleKicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a BeadleKicking Up a Breeze or Barrow Women Basting a Beadle

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.