Title Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-Arabesques

Title Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-Arabesques

Jan Collaert I

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vertical panel with pendant design at center with the text on a cartouche set in an ornament with a flower-arabesque pattern. The ornament is topped by a vase-shaped motif with flowers growing above, and is flanked by axe-shaped motifs. From a set of ten plates with pendant designs, five of which show deities in niches. The four other designs are decorated with ornate flower-arabesques and are most likely designs for pendant versos. This plate belongs to the first edition of the series, published by Hans I Liefrinck in Antwerp before 1573. Jan Collaert I produced several series of plates with pendant designs, a practice continued by his son, Adriaen Collaert.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Title Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-ArabesquesTitle Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-ArabesquesTitle Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-ArabesquesTitle Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-ArabesquesTitle Plate, from Pendant Designs with Deities in Niches and Flower-Arabesques

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.