Horizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus Rinceau

Horizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus Rinceau

Anonymous, Italian, Venetian, 17th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a horizontal panel filled with a meandering acanthus rinceau. In the middle a male figure whose lower body consists of acanthus leaves, interacts with two fantastical creatures sprouting from the acanthus rinceau.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Horizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus RinceauHorizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus RinceauHorizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus RinceauHorizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus RinceauHorizontal Panel Design with a Man and Two Fantastical Creatures Interspersed between an Acanthus Rinceau

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.