A Confession

Phil May

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A laughing cavalier here whispers his confession into the ear of an elderly priest, causing the latter's hair to rise in shocked surprise. May was a popular cartoonist who worked at the end of the nineteenth century, using a spare linear style that moved the genre away from detailed narrative images typical in the Victorian era towards a simplicity more typical in the later decades. Our imagination is called upon to fill what the cavalier might be saying. May must have valued this image because he dedicated to his beloved wife Lil.

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