The Conversion of Polemon

James Barry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Barry began work on this print in 1778, during the American Revolution and intended it as a political commentary. He represents a classical story recorded by Valerius Maxiumus that tells of Polemon, a frivilous youth who travels home at dawn after carousing and attempts to disrupt a discourse being delivered by Zenocrates on the virtues of modesty and temperance. Instead, as Polemon listens, he is converted, a change of heart indicated by the removal of the celebratory wreath from his head. The artist had dedicated earlier states of the etching to Charles James Fox, the Whig politician who was also a notorious gambler and heavy drinker, as well as a skilled orator. On February 2, 1778 he had delivered an electrifying Parliamentary speech against Britain's war with America. If Polemon refers to Fox, Barry intended the wise philosopher Zenocrates to compliment Edmund Burke. Like the artist, the latter was Irish and had been a significant patron early in Barry's career. Politically, Burke was a staunch defender of Whig principles and opposed the American War.

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