Plate 18, 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, an old man, officer, woman, and young girl inspect an elaborate urn on a pedestal at left, and a couple sits on a bench at right. Below, a man and two women sit on the grass at left, drinking and smoking, and a man bowls skittles at right while a young girl and two men watch.

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