Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern Background

Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern 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 alternating vertical rows of stylized flowers with three petals and four leaves decorated with pearls framed by alternating rows of amoeba shapes made of dots of light tan color over a background containing an abstract honeycomb pattern rendered with stipples of dark reddish-brown color over a light tan base. The flowers are of orange and purple color, with outlines of red color, and with a trefoil shape of white color with a red shade forming the pistils of the flower. The pearls are of white color. The interior of the amoeba shapes is of dark reddish-brown color and contains an interlacing pattern made with dots of light tan color.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern BackgroundTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern BackgroundTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern BackgroundTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern BackgroundTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers Decorated with Pearls and Alternating Rows of Amoeba Shapes Made with Dots over an Abstract Honeycomb Pattern 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.