Sir Joshua Reynolds

John Keyse Sherwin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Reynolds painted many self-portraits in his long career, many of which were reproduced as prints during his lifetime. This example, engraved by Sherwin in 1784, presents the sitter wearing doctoral robes and holding open papers in his right hand. Both the Universities of Dublin and Oxford had conferred honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law on Reynolds and the lettering below the image here proudly records these and other honors. The print publicized Reynolds's fame, echoing his own words that "distinction is what we all seek." Sherwin produced and published many translations of Reynolds's paintings, including his portrait of Edmund Burke in 1780 which is also in the Met's collection (53.600.480).

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