An Heir to the Throne, Or the Next Republican Candidate

Louis Maurer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This cruel political cartoon relies on racial stereotypes commonplace in the northern United States as well as the south at this date. Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln flank an undersized Black man who wears short pants and supports himself on a staff. The text makes it clear that he is being introduced as the Republican party's successor to Lincoln while faint lettering on the wall reads "Barnum's / What is it / Now / Exhibiting," comparing the man to strange creatures exhibited at P. T. Barnum's American Museum in New York.

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