Textile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting Branches

Textile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting Branches

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 garlands of stylized flowers and leaves of red color joined by stems decorated with pearls of white color over a light tan background with offsetting branches of tan color, separated by vertical rows of alternating shuttle-shaped motifs of black color with a small rosette flanked by two leaves of white color with offsetting branches of light tan and tan color, over a dark reddish-brown base.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Vertical Garlands of Stylized Flowers and Leaves and Pearls with Offsetting Branches Separated by Vertical Rows of Alternating Shuttle-Shaped Motifs with a Small Rosette Flanked by Two Leaves with Offsetting Branches

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.