Ornamento delle belle & virtuose donne, page 2 (verso)

Matteo Pagano

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published by Matteo Pagano, Italian, 1515-1588, Venice, bound by Lloyd, Wallis & Lloyd, British, active London after 1821. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 4 vertical columns printed upon a grid. First two columns are broken up into 2 separate sections, each with a different pattern. The top sections of the first two columns are characterized by a zigzag line, and the bottom sections are characterized by an alternating pattern of two different motifs. Third column forms the shape of a long parallelogram. Fourth column is decorated with an alternating pattern of 2 black triangles forming diamonds and a white diamond ornamented with a linear motif.

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