Diverses Pieces de Serruriers, page 13 (recto)

Jean Berain

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Engravings by Jean I Berain, French, Saint-Mihiel 1640-1711 Paris and Gabriel Ladame, French, active 1645-68. Designs published by Francois Langlois after Hughes Brisville, French, born ca. 1633, active Paris 1663. From top to bottom, and left to right: Design is for a lock plate and is in the shape of a rectangle. Illustrated in the center of the design is a composite nude female and plant figure that is connected to coiling vines of leaves and flowers; this entire section sits upon a thin rectangular base. Below the top portion of the design is a hexagonal key hole that is surrounded by foliage elements and flanked at the sides by a circle containing a floral motif. At each corner of the design is a diverse foliage element.

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