Moorish Wall Elevation

Anonymous, British, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This richly ornamented elevation was probably drawn in Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century. A pair of central doors is pierced by cusped, arched windows supported by short columns. Below and to either side, panels of finely detailed ornament composed of meandering vines and leaves fill the wall. The patterns derive from the carved wood or stone panels used to decorate interiors throughout Moorish North Africa. In Britain, the designs are likely to have been painted onto a plastered wall with the help of stencils. The artist labeled the panel variations with letters and showed the patterns in black and white on one side and with added detailing in ocher on the other. Since the design includes what appear to be towel bars set beneath the windows, it may have been intended for part of a bath pavilion.

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