Greeting Card

Johannes Endletzberger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Riddell, a devoted collector of paper ephemera, donated hundreds of greeting cards and valentines to The Met in 1981. Prized among the collection are nineteenth-century cards from Central Europe expressing messages of love and friendship and commemorating the New Year, name days, and other holidays. Attributed to Johannes Endletzberger, the foremost producer of cards of this type, they are made of precious materials, including mother of pearl, and are rendered with a breathtaking level of craftsmanship.

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