The Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary Week

The Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary Week

Snyder, Black & Sturn

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This interior shows a famous church on Broadway between Worth Street and Catherine Lane, opened in 1836 to hold 2,400 people, the size of crowds that flocked to hear the evangelist Charles Finney (1792-1875). The building was also used to house inter-demoninational celebrations held annually to commemorate a range of Protesant philanthropies.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary WeekThe Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary WeekThe Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary WeekThe Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary WeekThe Broadway Tabernacle, New York, in Anniversary Week

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.