Milton's Comus

Milton's Comus

Sir Joseph Noël Paton

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Milton centered his masque "Comus" on a mythic figure that he called the son of Bacchus, and used to embody frenzied revelry. Here, he leads riotous followers through the woods at night–some sporting animal heads. Paton came to London from Scotland to attend the Royal Academy Schools in 1843 and soon was commissioned to illustrate two poems in Samuel Carter Hall's "Book of British Ballads" (1842-43). This drawing, with its free pen work and emphasis upon the nude, likely was produced a year or two later. By 1848, Paton adopted a tighter style influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites (as a friend of John Everett Millais since student days, Paton was invited to join brotherhood, declined formal membership, was sympathetic to their tenets).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.