Livre de Moresques, page 9 (verso)

Francesco di Pellegrino

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This book of moresques reproduces designs by the Italian artist Francesco Pellegrino, first published in book form by the artist in Paris in 1530 under the title La Fleur de la Science de Pourtraicture. It is considered the first elaborate publication to introduce the exotic designs in Western Europe, although the ornament was known already through the import of textiles and other objects from the Near East. The publication of the ornament in books and prints immensely increased the interest of native artist and it soon became highly fashionable. Pellegrino’s designs were reordered and presented in compressed form in the Livre de Moresque, which appears to have been published first by Cornelis Bos in Antwerp in 1543. Gormont subsequently published the book in Paris in 1546, possibly with the consent of Bos, whom had spent some time in Paris after his expulsion from Antwerp in 1544, and had settled in Germany (Nuremberg) by 1546.

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