Horizontal Panel Design with Four Hybrid Male Figures and a Fantastical Creature Interspersed between Acanthus Rinceaux

Anonymous, Italian, Venetian, 17th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for a horizontal panel with a male figure in the middle, seen from the back, whose lower body consists of rinceaux which meander across the page. He looks left, into the eyes of a fantastical creature with a grotesque head springing forth from one of the rinceaux. Surrounding him are three more male hybrid creatures whose lower bodies similarly consist out of acanthus rinceaux or leaves.

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