George Washington

Anonymous, French, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This lithograph may have been created in Europe around 1848, when uprisings in favor of reform in France and Germany sparked renewed interest in the American Revolution. The image relies on Léon Cogniet's 1836 portrait that shows Washington standing on the bank of the Delaware River—details of the latter taken from John Trumbull’s famous representation of the general at the Battle of Trenton, where the beleaguered Americans won an unexpected victory on December 26, 1776.

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