The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"

The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"

Edward Armitage

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This image is inspired by Alexander Pope's "Windsor Forest" which names tributaries of the Thames. Father Thames stands next to a stone jar, surrounded from upper left, by the Wandle (a woman holding a pitcher), the Kennet (a youth holding a trident), the Thame (a man resting his head on a hand), the Lee (a man with weed in his hair), the Mole (a man in shadow), the Darent (a woman with a finger to her lips), the Isis (a woman holding a small church), the Colne (a bearded man crowned with leaves), the Wey (a cloaked man leaning on a post), and the Loddon (a youth with leaves around his head). The print reproduces, in reverse, a fresco that Armitage painted in the Upper Waiting Hall of the new House of Lords. Fresco had been little used in England for public buildings but was here encouraged by Prince Albert. The damp climage caused the frescoes to decay and they were concealed by 1894, but have recently been conserved.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"The Rivers of England, from "Illustrated London News"

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.