An Artist Travelling in Wales
Thomas Rowlandson
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The protracted Anglo-French conflict between 1792 and 1815 prevented British artists from exploring the Continent. Instead, many sought vistas at home, encouraged by William Gilpin’s influential book Observations relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (1786). Rowlandson’s image parodies a strenuous tour made through Wales in August 1797 with the caricaturist Henry Wigstead. A published account describes constant fog and rain, rough roads, poor lodgings, spartan food and wild country folk. In this image, a tall, thin, figure–possibly intended for Wigstead–balances on a small pony. Man and beast are laden with artistic paraphernalia, all inadequately shielded from the downpour. A rustic family watches in amazement; for them the artist presents a much more interesting spectacle than the scenery.
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.