Innere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New York

Innere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New York

Fritz Meyer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The watercolor shows the Interior of a large entertainment center that stood at 45 Bowery, New York, designed by Henry Hoffmann. Oval in shape, the large open center walit from above by glass skylights and surrounded by an arcade of slender columns, with a balcony around the second floor. New York's beer gardens were built to accomodate German immigrants, with families and children gathering there on Saturday afternoons and Sunday evenings to eat, socialize, sing and drink beer. Beer gardens were found in German American neighborhoods in lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Hoboken, Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, some large enought to hold one thousand visitors.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Innere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New YorkInnere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New YorkInnere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New YorkInnere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New YorkInnere Ansicht des Deutschen Volks Winter Gartens. IInterior of the German Winter Garden. 45 Bowery, New York

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.