Splendore delle virtuose giovani, page 16 (recto)

Iseppo Foresto

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Designed by Iseppo Foresto, published by Jeronimo Calepino, Venice. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 3 vertical columns printed upon a grid. Left column is decorated in the center with a 6-sided linear motif terminating into a dragon at 4 of its points; this central motif is further decorated with a superimposed black dotted line that attaches to a flower at the very top and bottom. Middle column is decorated in the center with a female composite figure (horse legs ?) who takes hold onto a coiling vine at each side. Right column is decorated in the center with a female composite figure with leaves for legs that curve outward and attach to coiling vines of leaves and flowers.

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