Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"

Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of forty prints from Rowlandson's "World in Miniature; Consisting of Groups of Figures, for the Illustration of Landscape Scenery." Three scenes: at top, a lying-in visit with the mother in a rocking chair at left and a baby being admired by three ladies at right; at middle, a round dance with fiddle players at left; below, ship-building on the shore.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"Plate 4: A Lying-in Visit, A Round Dance, from "World in Miniature"

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.