The True Peace Commissioners

Currier & Ives

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Currier & Ives, premier publishers of inexpensive popular prints in the nineteenth century, distributed several political cartoons related to the Civil War. In this pro-Union image, Confederate leaders General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis stand back-to-back in the center of the composition, attempting to ward off attacks by Union officers Philip H. Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant, David G. Farragut, and William T. Sherman. The illustration represents the opinion of the War Democrats, supporters of the war, in response to what many considered to be false peace overtures from the South. It also criticizes the party’s other leading faction, the Peace Democrats, who pushed for a reconciliation between the North and South.

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