A Peep into Friar Bacon's Study

A Peep into Friar Bacon's Study

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

King George III is represented as Friar Bacon, standing in a magician's room and holding pointers at three circles, which represent the Constitution during different time periods. From left to right, they are inscribed "Time is Past," "Time Is," and "Time Was." The first shows the king seated on a throne surrounded with rays of glory emanating from him. Two small circles of the two Houses of Parliament sit on the exterior. The second has three circles within it, the King's being the largest, followed by the House of Lords, and then the House of Commons. The third contains three circles of equal size, representing three equal branches of government. Edmund Burke, Frederick North, and Charles James Fox look in through a doorway at left.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Peep into Friar Bacon's StudyA Peep into Friar Bacon's StudyA Peep into Friar Bacon's StudyA Peep into Friar Bacon's StudyA Peep into Friar Bacon's Study

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.