The Thames, or the Triumph of Navigation

James Barry

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Barry based this print on one of the paintings he made to adorn the Great Room of London's Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. The image centers on a personification of the Thames who rides in a vessel that moves away from the English coast as Mercury, the god of Commerce, flies overhead. Modern figures and objects elaborate the allegory, with navigational instruments invented or improved by Englishmen guiding the Thames, who is propelled by the illustrious seamen Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook. Nereids swim alongside carrying the manufactures of the Midlands, to be dispersed to the four principal trading continents. In typical individualistic fashion, Barry inserted a portrait of his friend the musician Dr. Charles Burney amidst the nereids, to remind viewers of the need for a national school of music. The first state of this work was printed and published by Barry in 1792; this example of the third state dates to 1801-2 and is identified by the addition of a naval tower at right.

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