Joaillerie: Album of Jewelry Designs, Page 8
Anonymous, French
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Eighth page of a small album containing drawings with jewelry designs copied after the prints by L. van der Cruycen, "Nouveau Livre de Desseins..." (New Book of Designs...), published in Paris in 1770. This page contains a design for a headpiece or diademe, characteristic of the style in vogue during the reign of Louis XVI in France, displaying a serendipitous flavor, with asymmetrical forms, "rocaille" and stylized natural motifs, and heavily decorated with flowers, ribbons and tassels, thus representing the taste of the Rococo style, which was fashionable in France and Europe during the eighteenth century. The elaborately carved forms presented in the designs were particularly sought after during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, and were to be accomplished by skilled artisans who would work out the decorations by hand. The diademe contains interlacing garlands of leaves and flowers that frame three larger stylized flowers. Each one of the stylized flowers is different, which might suggest a possibility of different variants for the design, giving the customer or the goldsmith the opportunity to choose among the different options. However, because elaborate naturalistic motifs with all sorts of flowers and leaves was highly fashionable during the time, there is also a possibility that the use of three different types of flowers was how the design was conceived. The design in this drawing is a copy after plate number 5 of the album of engravings by Van der Cruycen.
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.