Cover Page from Geometria et Perspectiva

Lorenz Stoer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fascination with perspective and geometry culminates in this print series designed by Lorenz Stoer. Aside from the title page, the work is devoid of text but features illustrations of fantastical landscapes populated by polyhedrons amid ruins and strapwork constructions. The title page explains the puzzling images: they are said to be useful to artists working in the field of wood inlay, or marquetry. The art of rendering perspectival imagery in marquetry was popular in Italy throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and was adopted in southern Germany as well. Several cabinets from the later sixteenth century with decorations in the style of Stoer’s prints are known, one of which can be found in the Museum’s own collection (see 48.59.2). The extent to which meaning was ascribed to this kind of imagery, or whether they were thought of simply as decorative patterns, is unclear. See 1984.1085.1–.13 for additional pages in the bound volume. This page, block trimmed at top and bottom.

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art