Blackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque Pattern

Blackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque Pattern

Claes Jansz. Visscher

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blackwork print with an all-over grotesque pattern. The design is characterized by the figure of a winged soldier or cuirasse on top of an arch. The grotesque is filled with fruit. flowers, insects and birds.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque PatternBlackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque PatternBlackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque PatternBlackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque PatternBlackwork Print with a Symmetric Grotesque Pattern

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.