Storming the Castle – "Old "Abe" on Guard

Currier & Ives

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This political cartoon responds to the Presidential campaign of 1860 where Abraham Lincoln represented the Republican party, running against John Bell of the Consitutional Union party and Stephen Douglas, nominated by the Democrats. Dressed as a "Wide Awake," a group of young supporters of the Republicans, Lincoln sports a cape and military cap while carrying a lantern and rail-shaped pike. Rounding the corner of a building labeled the "White House," he discovers his opponents trying to break in. Bell acts as lookout for Douglas who attempts to open the door with skeleton keys, while the current presiden James Buchanan struggles to pull John Breckenridge in through a window.

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