Textile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled Background

Textile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled Background

Anonymous, Alsatian, 19th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rectangular sheet of paper with a textile design from a group, dated 1840, made in Mulhouse, Alsace, which was an important nineteenth-century center for textile production in the Haut-Rhin region of France. The design is made up of vertical rows of alternating vertical lens-shapes of two different sizes bordered by pearls, separated by vertical scrolls of ribbons of light tan color with shades formed by stipples of dark reddish-brown color, over a light tan background with stipples of dark reddish-brown color. The larger lenses are of dark red color and are positioned over a star-like shape rendered with dark reddish-brown stipples; the smaller lenses are of black color with an off-setting shade of dark reddish-brown stipples of the same lens shape. The pearls are of white color with black outlines.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled BackgroundTextile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled BackgroundTextile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled BackgroundTextile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled BackgroundTextile Design with Vertical Rows of Alternating Lenses of Two Different Sizes Bordered by Pearls Separated by Vertical Scrolls of Ribbons Over a Stippled Background

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.