La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorti di recami, page 14 (verso)

Giovanni Ostaus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published by Giovanni Ostaus, Venice, woodcut of Lucrezia designed by Giuseppe Salviati (Giuseppe Porta, called Il Salviati), Italian, Castelnuova di Garfagnana ca. 1520-1575 Venice. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 6 horizontal registers that are printed upon a grid. First register is decorated with a wavy vine of flowers. Second register is decorated with a pattern of curving leaves. Third register is decorated with a pattern of overlapping 'balloon' shapes. Fourth register is decorated with a vine of minimalist 3-petaled flowers. Fifth register is decorated with a linear pattern. Bottom register is decorated with a pattern of minimalist 4-petaled 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