Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)

Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)

Miguel Gamborino

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The second in a group of eighteen hand-coloured engravings with a total of 72 figures representing the cries (trades/street vendors) of Madrid. Their occupations are many, and include everything from fish mongers, fruit and sweet vendors to those selling household items (chairs, pots, matts etc). This set is the first edition before each sheet was cut into four and the figures individually numbered and enclosed within a border. Each figure in the present set is accompanied by a title pertaining to their occupation. The set is notable for its delicate hand colouring. Images of cries were immensely popular from the sixteenth century, especially in Italy and France. In Spain few are known, and this group is of particular interest, for, in addition to identifying the trade, the phonetic rending of their cry they issued to attract customers is sometimes provided, presumably because it was so recognizable. See: Miguel Gamborino, ‘Los Gritos de Madrid. Colección de setenta y dos grabados de Maigues Gamborino’, texts by José Antonio Calvo Torija and Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Madrid 1997 (facsimile edition of second edition).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)Plate 2: four street vendors from Madrid selling garlic and onions, cucumbers, fine crockery, oil, from 'Los Gritos de Madrid' (The Cries of Madrid)

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.