Two Alternate Designs for a Doorway

Anonymous, Italian, Piedmontese, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The artist who drew this design has made clever use of his sheet of paper by combining two different variations for the design of a marble doorway in one drawing. Since Baroque art was characterized by its symmetry, only one half of the design sufficed to create an understanding of the whole. The drawing was bought as part of a large group of Piedmontese designs for interior architecture, which illustrate the transitions in style from Baroque to Rococo and finally Neoclassicism. This design in particular is interesting because it incorporates the transition from the late Baroque to the Rococo style. The overall, somewhat austere character of the architecture is still typical for the Baroque, but the ornaments on top of the door frame herald the new interest in the whimsical rocaille ornaments which resemble shell shapes or the crest of a wave.

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