Madame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale Paris

Madame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale Paris

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two images on one sheet. At top, a woman with her hair piled high sits at a table with a mirror behind her. In front of her are trays filled with cards, fruit, a plant, and a reading lamp. Below, a fashionably dressed woman sits at an ornately decorated chair and table, studying a pamphlet inscribed "Paris" at top. Three men ogle at her from a table below at left.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Madame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale ParisMadame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale ParisMadame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale ParisMadame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale ParisMadame Very Restauranteur, Palais Royal Paris and La Belle Liminaudiere au Caffee De Mille Collone, Palais Royale Paris

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.