La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorti di recami, page 17 (recto)

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 3 horizontal registers that are printed upon a grid. Top register is decorated with a pattern of interlace motifs formed by vines and leaves. Middle register is decorated in the center with a pot of flowers that is flanked on either side by a griffon followed by a circle framing a 2-headed bird (left side) or a siren (right side). Bottom register is decorated with a pattern of diamonds superimposed with an 'X', which is then surrounded by other geometric motifs.

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