Trade Card of Philip Roker, Goldsmith

Anonymous, British, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Trade card for Philip Roker, working goldsmith at the Golden Cup. The card is framed by an elaborate cartouche in the British Rococo style. Throughout small attributes of the goldsmith's trade have been incorporated into the design. Most notably, at top, an ornate lidded cup is depicted in a separate compartment, flanked on either side by putti executed in stipple technique.

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