La Toilette des Morts, from "Illustrated London News"

William Luson Thomas

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charlotte Corday, who murdered the Jacobin Jean-Marie Marat, is seen here imprisoned in the Conciergerie (a medieval palace in Paris) awaiting execution. An artist who has just finished her portrait packs away his paints, and a jailor who wears a Cap of Liberty cuts Charlotte's hair to prepare her for the guillotine. The print is based on a painting shown at the Royal Academy in 1863 titled "Charlotte Corday—Her last toilette before her execution." The image offers a grim variation on a woman's dressing ritual, with the jailor replacing a hairdresser, and the canvas taking the place of a mirror.

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