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Willem Vosterman

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Printed by Willem Vosterman. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design composed of 5 horizontal registers. First register is decorated with zigzagging lines that have an acorn at each point. Second register is decorated with an alternating pattern of right side-up and upside-down acorns. Third register is decorated with an alternating pattern of a floral motif and birds. Fourth register is divided into 2 sections: left has a black background and right has a white background; this register is decorated with a zigzagging line that has a trefoil motif at each point. Fifth register is divided into 2 sections: left has a black background and is decorated with a linear patter and right has a white background and is decorated in the center with squares that are connected to a linear pattern at the sides.

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