Lucidario di Recami, page 16 (recto)

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 3 vertical columns; each column is printed upon a grid. Left column is decorated in the center with an interlace motif formed by coiling vines at its sides. Middle column is decorated in the center with a flower that is flanked on both sides by a composite creature with a lion head, bird wings, and female human chest that forms part of the stem that coils outward at the sides and terminates with another composite creature. Right column is decorated with 2 curving vines, partially formed by a dragon, which attach to a ram's head in the center.

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