School for Modern Romans

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this eighth print of a group of eight, a young man who is deeply has shot himself. We see him discovered by a hairdressers and tailor, accompanied by men carrying bills and notes of debt. Suicide was then illegal in Britain but, as the title indicates, associated with ancient Romans who pursued it as a virtuous option when life became unbearable. The young man here is, of course, not virtuous but has chosen suicide to escape disgrace and debtor's prison. Rowlandson etched this set after drawings by Willyams, a university-educated lieutenant-colonel from Cornwall who also supplied supporting satirical text under the pseudonym Joel McCringer. Rowlandson's characteristic elegance does not disguise the dark human impulses being satirized. Modern education, it is suggested, does little to teach self-control, wisdom or empathy.

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