The Three Bears

Harrison William Weir

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This pamphlet introduced American children to the story of "The Three Bears." Published by Hurd and Houghton (New York, 1851), the work replicates a British issue of 1849–50 illustrated by Harrison Weir. Two decades later the American artist Seymour Guy included an image of the pamphlet in his painting "The Story of Golden Locks" (2013.604) where it lies open in the lap of a girl who recounts the tale to wide-eyed younger siblings. Robert Southey introduced British readers to "The Three Bears" in 1837 as part of a longer narrative titled "The Doctor." In that version the protagonist is an old woman. Joseph Cundall's "Treasury of Pleasure Books for Children" (1850) instead centers the story on a lttle girl named Silver-hair, and she retains that name in this 1851 pamphlet. The key elements of the story were thus established, although it took several more decades before the girl became Golden Locks, then finally the modern Goldilocks.

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