Design for a Console Table

Design for a Console Table

Pierre Edmé Babel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for an asymmetrical console table in Rococo Style and two halves of other rocaille ornaments, possibly meant as variants to the table’s base. The table’s supporting structure is decorated with rocaille ornaments and vegetal branches. On the left side, right below the entablature, a little dragon is incorporated. Its pendant on the right side is the bust of a woman. Below, in the center of the base a large bird is placed, resting on a rocaille ornament covered by a patch of flowers and thin leafy bushes.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.