From the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and Tally

From the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and Tally

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Joseph, dressed as a lawyer, steps atop a desk with his right toe, while extending his other leg to point his left toe at a map of Spain and Portugal, at Madrid. His hands are raised above his head to hold onto cushions on which is the crown of Spain. Four clerks sit facing each other at the desk he has left, which has double slopes, divided by the low rail from which he steps. One asks: "Why Joseph wither art thou going"; he looks down answer: "Whither - but to fill my high destiny? And like my noble Brother Sway tne Sceptre of another." The other clerks say respectively: "But proverbs tell of many Slips Between the tankard & the lips And really I am apt to give The proverb credit as I live" and "He must needs go whom the Devil drives and should it cost his Neck; Ownds! what a prodigious step for a Notary's clerk."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and TallyFrom the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and TallyFrom the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and TallyFrom the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and TallyFrom the Desk to the Throne, A New Quick Step by Joseph Bonaparte the Bass By Messers Nappy and Tally

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.