Greeting Card

Johannes Endletzberger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Johannes Endletzberger was a well-known maker of Biedermeier-era greeting cards, and his most popular designs included semi-precious materials. This greeting card is a framed collage. The frame is embossed gold paper which has tarnished to a dull green color. Within the frame is a piece of pale blue silk chiffon. Applied to the chiffon is an embossed image of a woman resting on one knee. Her arms reach up to support a gold woven basket of colorful flowers upon on her head. She is dressed in a traditional sari, which is painted yellow, and a blue, gold trimmed shawl covering her head. On the ground, there are numerous plants with green paper leaves and colorful flowers. At the bottom, there is a white paper with an engraved message.

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