Title Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche Below

Title Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche Below

Adriaen Collaert

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vertical panel with two pendant designs above a strapwork cartouche with the title. Each pendant is suspended from a small jewelled motif tied with a ribbon and is composed of a sea-monster ridden by a nude figure on a shell. Below, Neptune, with his trident in his right hand, stands on the cartouche. Plate 1 from a series of ten plates with pendant designs in the shape of sea monsters. The series, known as Designs for Pendants II, was engraved by Adriaen Collaert, after designs by his father, Jan Collaert I, who died in 1580. Jan Collaert I produced several series of pendant designs, including the prequel to this series, Designs for Pendants I. This print belongs to the first edition, published in Antwerp by Philips Galle in 1582.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Title Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche BelowTitle Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche BelowTitle Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche BelowTitle Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche BelowTitle Plate with Two Pendant Designs Above and Neptune Standing on a Cartouche Below

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.