La Gloria et l'Honore di Ponti Tagliati, E Ponti in Aere, page 5 (recto)

Matteo Pagano

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published by Matteo Pagano, Italian, 1515-1588, Venice. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 4 vertical columns printed upon a grid. First column is decorated with an interlace pattern formed by intertwining stems with leaves; at the center of the interlace pattern is an image of a dotted white chimp holding a flower. Second column is decorated with coiling stems with leaves and flowers that flank a central image of a female composite creature with plant arms and legs. Third column is decorated with 2 superimposed curving vines, one of which has a black 3-petaled leaf at each point, and the other has a black circle. Fourth column is decorated with curving stems of solid black and white dotted leaves that emanate from a central dotted white floral element.

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