
Horizontal Panel with a Row of Flowers Above a Frieze with Figures in a Landscape, from Livre Nouveau de Fleurs Tres-Util
Nicolas Cochin
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
At top, a horizontal panel with a row of flowers, including a columbine at right. Below, a frieze with figures in a landscape. At right, a seated couple seen from behind, with a townscape in the background at left. From a series of twelve plates with rows of flowers above friezes with landscapes, etched by Cochin, published by Balthazar Moncornet in Paris in 1645, and dedicated to the goldsmith, Jean de Leins. The prints are executed in a combination of etching, for the landscape, and burin, for the flowers.
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.