Men seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toast

Men seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toast

Thomas Bewick

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A young man dressed in hunting attire and holding a whip, sits on a table and holds up a glass. There is a punch bowl behind him and five other men gathered around the table, with one other at right also dressed as a hunter. Three fox hounds on the floor and prints of riders and hounds on the wall behind.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Men seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toastMen seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toastMen seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toastMen seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toastMen seated around a punch bowl, with a hunter offering a toast

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.