Corona delle Nobili et Virtuose Donne: Libro I-IV, page 99 (recto)

Cesare Vecellio

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published by Cesare Vecellio, Italian, Pieve di Cadore 1521-1601 Venice, Venice. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 4 horizontal registers. Frist register is decorated on the top edge with 4 ornamented pentagonal motifs; bottom edge is decorated with a wavy line of flowers framed within diamonds that flank a central female composite creature with 2 birds at her sides. Second register is decorated with 2 overlapping zigzag lines that form diamonds that frame flowers and triangular shapes that frame another triangle. Third register is decorated with an alternating pattern of right-side up and upside-down triangular motifs formed by curving vines around flowers. Fourth register is decorated with a pattern of flowers that have black-and-white striped vines.

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