Album of designs for embroidery: bodices, gauntlets, caps, bags, page 73 (recto)

Anonymous, Dutch, 17th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anonymous, Dutch, 17th century. From top to bottom, and left to right: Page consists of 2 designs. Top design is unfinished, although it appears that its finished state would be in the shape of a diamond. It is decorated with a central flower. Inside the left corner is a grasshopper and inside the right corner in a snail. Bottom design is in the shape of rectangle and is decorated with curving vine with leaves and flowers; the bottom end of the vine forms a cornucopia. There is a bird, butterfly, and snail that exist on the vine.

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