Shakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her Pencil

Shakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her Pencil

James Stow

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This frontipiece to Boydell's 1797 edition of "Shakespeare's Works" reproduces a sculpture by Joseph Banks that adorned the facade of the Shakespeare Gallery on London's Pall Mall. The playwright sits between the Dramatic Muse, who lauds him with a lyre and laurel wreath, and an allegorical representation of Painting. Opened in 1788, the gallery eventually contained about 170 paintings of subjects from the plays painted by London artists. When Napoleon's naval blockade undercut British trade with Europe, Boydell lost crucial revenue and went bankrupt. After the gallery's contents were dispersed by lottery in 1805 the building was leased by the British Institution through 1867, then demolished. Banks's sculpture was moved in 1868 to the gardens at New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon (the site of a house owned by Shakespeare from 1597 and now part of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Shakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her PencilShakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her PencilShakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her PencilShakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her PencilShakespeare Seated Between the Dramatic Muse and the Genius of Painting, Who is Pointing Him Out as the Proper Subject for Her Pencil

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.