Dr. Arne

Francesco Bartolozzi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This caricatured portrait represents a leading late 18th-century composer known for the operas and masques he composed for London's Covent Garden and Drury Lane theatres. Arne introduced female voices into the choruses of his oratorios and is remembered for "Rule Britannia," written for the masque "Alfred," and for the nursery song "A Hunting We Will Go." Bartolozzi's crayon-manner etching reproduces a sketch he made from life (Royal Collection, Windsor), showing Arne at the harpsichord. The print itself was issued fourl years after Arne's death.

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