Napoleon

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Heading to a printed broadside. A description of the image of Napoleon is inscribed at the bottom: "This Hieroglyphic Portrait of the DESTROYER is faithfully copied from a German Print, with the parody of his assumed titles. The "Hat. . ." represents a discomfited French Eagle, maimed and crouching, after his Conflict with the Eagles of the North. His "Visage" is composed of the Carcases of the Victims of his Folly and Ambition, who perished on the Plains of Russia and Saxony. His Throat is encircled with the "Red Sea", in Allusion to his drowned Hosts. His Epaulette is a "Hand", leading the Rhenish Confederation, under the flimsy Symbol of a "Cobweb". The "Spider" is an Emblem of the Vigilance of the Allies, who have inflicted on That Hand a deadly Sting!"

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