"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother

"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother

Louis Maurer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This political cartoon comments on the candidates running for president of the United State in 1860. Stephen Douglas, representing the Northern Democratic party, staggers on a wooden leg while the sitting president James Buchanan offers another wooden leg to his vice-president, John C. Breckinridge--the latter was backed by the Southern Democratic party. Beside them, the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln leans against a fence and says, "Go it ye cripples! Wooden legs are cheap but stumping won't save you." At left, John Bell, the candidate of the Constitutional Union Party, stands talking with Henry Wise, Governor of Virginia.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother"Taking the Stump" or Stephen in Search of his Mother

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.