Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"

Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"

Thomas Rowlandson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of forty prints from Rowlandson's "World in Miniature; Consisting of Groups of Figures, for the Illustration of Landscape Scenery." A priest giving a sermon in a pulpit at left, within a Gothic style church. The congregation is seated in two rows of pews in front of him, while two other small groups of people stand beside the pulpit.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"Plate 38, from "World in Miniature"

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.