Auricular Cartouche with Figures within a Strapwork Frame from Veederley Veranderinghe van grotissen ende Compertimenten. Libro Primo

Cornelis Floris II

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In his early career in Antwerp, the sculptor Cornelis Floris proved himself to be one of the most inventive designers of ornament. He took inspiration from Italian grotesque decorations and developed his very own vocabulary of, often exotic, creatures which inhabit a world of strapwork. Invertebrates and sea creatures play a prominent role in the designs, which illustrates the contemporary taste for the bizarre, but may also have be connected with Antwerp’s success in trade by sea. This particular type of grotesques became characteristic for Antwerp during the 1540s and 1550s, and is sometimes even specifically referred to as Floris grotesques, although several hands can be distinguished in extant designs.

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