Blackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a Grotesque

Blackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a Grotesque

Hans de Bull

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blackwork print with a grotesque atop a large bezel at center flanked by two smaller bezels above and two outward-facing, lunar-shaped motifs below, connected by a draped cloth. Butterflies face inwards at left and right center. From a series of six plates.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Blackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a GrotesqueBlackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a GrotesqueBlackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a GrotesqueBlackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a GrotesqueBlackwork Print with Five Ornament Motifs, a Pair of Butterflies and a Grotesque

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.