Latin Cross with Birds and Smaller Motifs

Latin Cross with Birds and Smaller Motifs

Jacques Hurtu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Part of a series of 6 with goldsmiths designs executed in the blackwork technique. Design for a pendant shaped like a Latin cross, decorated with Schweifwerk. The cross is surrounded by smaller motifs, including two ring bezels and two rectangular designs in blackwork. Other decorative elements, such as fruit garlands and a rooster and turkey, have been added in engraving.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Latin Cross with Birds and Smaller MotifsLatin Cross with Birds and Smaller MotifsLatin Cross with Birds and Smaller MotifsLatin Cross with Birds and Smaller MotifsLatin Cross with Birds and Smaller Motifs

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.