Architectura Privata: Das is Gründtliche Beschreibung...in was form...ein Burgerliches Wohn-Haus...

Joseph Furttenbach the Elder

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Furttenbach's intimate garden courtyard with a small grotto, richly decorated with rare flowers arranged in several compartments, illustrates the intimate "secret garden" owned by the wealthy bourgeoisie in early seventeenth-century Germany and the Netherlands. Furttenbach describes the grotto in his garden as being filled with artifice and exotica, including shell-encrusted sculptures and waterworks, painted cosmological imagery, and mirrors. His garden is a kind of open-air museum where the plants constitute the valued, living statues. The flowers are identifiable as the most sought after and costly bulbs of the period, the narcissus, tulip, fritillary, and crown imperial, demonstrating Furttenbach's knowledge of current botanical research.

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