The Naumacia to Commemorate a Peace

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A naumachia taking place in Lake Serpentine at right. Four small ships are in the water, and one man propels on a rocket off ot the "Colossus" at left. A man points at the scene at left alongside a woman who looks surprisedly at the scene. John Bull sits at a table at left with a ticket and paper that read: "ADMIT Mr. and Mrs. BULL to the Fete, 1 Guinea" and "O woe is me I have seen what I have seen seeing what I see."

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