American Institute, New York City (front elevation)

Alexander Jackson Davis

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This design for the American Institute follows a scheme that features more often in Davis' designs for public buildings in an urban environment. The facade of this building is most strongly marked by its columns, which, although abstracted, are in the Egyptian style. It is certainly not the only Egyptian revival building Davis designed, but he more commonly applied the style to penitentiaries, cemetery entrances, and monuments.

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