Design for the Decoration of a Palace Wall (Veronese Palazzo?)
Alessandro Vittoria (Alessandro Vittoria di Vigilio della Volpa)
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Design for the decoration of a wall with two single doorways and a central, arched niche left blank for a painting. The wall is otherwise completely covered in decorations which could be executed in a variety of techniques form fresco to stucco and three-dimensional sculptural elements. Across the entire width, the bottom of the wall is characterized by a freeze with a Grecian geometrical border above and below panels with meandering acanthus and cartouches with mascarons. The two doors are flanked by male terms, presented in pairs on the outer sides and single terms flanking the central panel. Above this panel, two victory figures flank the bust of a Roman emperor, the whole surrounded by a strapwork cartouche, terms, putti and garlands. The scheme proposes two variants for the overdoor decorations with on the left the figure of a Roman soldier with a lance (Longinus?) in a niche and a small cartouche with a figurative scene above. On the right side, a strapwork cartouche is placed directly above the door with a much larger rectangular framed compartment above with the mythological tale of Meleager presenting Atalanta with the head of the Caledonian boar.
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.