Design for a Ceiling with Strapwork and a Cross-shaped Center

Hans Jakob Ebelmann

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This beautifully complex design is made by the German artist Hans Jakob Ebelmann. Not much is known about this artist other than the print series he produced which show designs for furniture and architecture in the very exuberant style typical for the late Renaissance in Central Europe. Based on his designs and his collaboration with the cabinetmaker Jakob Guckeisen he is presumed to have been a cabinetmaker himself. The ceiling designs he published in a series in 1609 can be considered as his finest works. They show a highly inventive combination and use of ornaments and motifs and are etched in a spontaneous yet refined manner.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art