Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and with Offsetting Branches

Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and 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 alternating vertical rows of stylized flowers with stems and leaves colored with red with offsetting branches of light tan and tan color separated by ornamental frames of red color containing rosettes flanked by leaves in the center and with offsetting branches of light tan and tan color over a dark reddish-brown ground. The stylized flowers have pistils of black color decorated with pearls of white color and a rosette of gold color; the rosettes within the frames are of black color over a white ground.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Textile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and with Offsetting BranchesTextile Design with Alternating Vertical Rows of Stylized Flowers with Stems and Leaves with Offsetting Branches Separated by Ornamental Frames Containing Rosettes Flanked by Leaves and 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.