Advice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth Knowing

Advice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth Knowing

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Publican stands at right visiting a man's office and asks him, "I read Sir an advertisement from your Office that for a Guinea premium you would inform Publicans how they might sell more Porter than usual – there Sir is the Guinea – and now let me know the Secret."; the man at left responds, "I will tell you sir in three words. it is simply this. Fill your Pots."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Advice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth KnowingAdvice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth KnowingAdvice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth KnowingAdvice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth KnowingAdvice to a Publican, or a Secret Worth Knowing

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.