Lucidario di Recami, title page (verso)

Iseppo Foresto

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Designed by Iseppo Foresto, published by Jeronimo Calepino, 1564. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 4 vertical columns. First column is decorated in the center with an urn flanked on the sides by a curving vine with leaves and acorns. Second column is decorated in the center with a 3-petaled flower with stems that curve outward at the sides. Third column is decorated with 2 curving vines that twist together in the center; among these vines are 2 reclining female nudes. Fourth column is decorated with a wavy vine with an alternating pattern of leaves and urns.

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