Grand Fantastical Parade, New-York, December 2, 1833

David Claypoole Johnston

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This caricature satirizes militia parades held in New York during the eighteen-thirties and responds to President Andrew Jackson's reelection campaign in the summer of 1833. The image makes fun of the eldery president's continuing reliance on a militiary reputation established decades earlier. A clown-like figure resembling Jackson leads the parade on horseback, holding an oversized sword. The crowd that follows is composed mostly of clowns and carnival types, and includes figures who resemble Don Quixote and Napoleon. As a group, they fail to demonstrate military preparedness. Quotes in the lower margin from Shakespeare's Henvy VI, part II and Henry IV, part I, underscore the message, while the signature at lower right, "Hassan Sheepshanks," is a pseudonym which scholars have connected to the leading American caricaturist David Claypoole Johnston who was known as the "American Cruikshank" (comparing him to his British contemporary, George Cruikshank).

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