Square Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque Figures

Square Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque Figures

Esaias von Hulsen

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sheet is part of a series of square grotesque designs by the goldsmith Esaias von Hulsen. The patterns he designed for this series are very complex compilations of animals, human figures and various different objects placed in a network of thin strips characterized by many C-Volutes, also known as Schweifwerk. Decorations such as these go back to Roman mural decorations, the most famous of which were to be found in the Domus Aurea in Rome. Renaissance and Baroque artists developed these grotesques further and came up with many ‘modern’ manifestations. Von Hulsen’s prints are remarkable because he is one of the first to break the Renaissance tradition of creating symmetrical designs.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Square Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque FiguresSquare Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque FiguresSquare Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque FiguresSquare Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque FiguresSquare Blackwork Design in Silhouette Style with Schweifwerk and Grotesque Figures

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.