La Vera Perfettione del Disegno di varie sorti di recami, page 28 (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 2 horizontal registers. Top register is decorated in the center with an urn with a flame that is flanked on either side by a composite man and lion creature with a coiling vine for a tail. Bottom register is decorated in the center with a flower emanating from the top of a deer's head, which is flanked on either side by a dog that has a tail in the form of a coiling vine that terminates in a composite man and insect creature.

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