Plate 5, from "World in Miniature"

Plate 5, 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." Two scenes: at top, a man converses with a young and an elderly laundress, who go through his garments he has brought; below, a farm scene with a man threshing hay in the background, and a man on horseback speaking with a young woman in the foreground.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 5, from "World in Miniature"Plate 5, from "World in Miniature"Plate 5, from "World in Miniature"Plate 5, from "World in Miniature"Plate 5, 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.