Plate 8, from "World in Miniature"

Plate 8, 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 shrimping girl shows her shrimp to a man who examines them with an eye glass; at middle, a smock race with an excited crowd running behind them; below, men dig for vegetables and women carry baskets on their heads.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 8, from "World in Miniature"Plate 8, from "World in Miniature"Plate 8, from "World in Miniature"Plate 8, from "World in Miniature"Plate 8, 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.