Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!

Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of a set of twelve prints that make fun of different sorts of mounts. Here, as his horse kneels, the rider struggles not to fall off. Text above reads: "This I presume is by way of proving to a certainty that two and two makes four!!"


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!Horse Accomplishments, Sketch 8: An Arithmetician !!

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.