View in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib Vaulting

View in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib Vaulting

Hans Pesser

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Print with a fisheye view of the interior of a hall with cross rib vaults supported by columns. The composition is set up with a central perspective leading to an arched window in the back wall, placed exactly in the center of the sheet. To illustrate the full width of the building, which is divided in nine bays by the columns, a circular perspective was chosen, which is highlighted by the pattern of the floor tiles. The print was used as a model for a pietra-dura tabletop, now in the Kunst-und Wunderkammer of Burg Trausnitz in Landshut, Germany.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

View in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib VaultingView in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib VaultingView in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib VaultingView in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib VaultingView in Fisheye perspective of a Hall with Columns and Cross Rib Vaulting

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.