Album or Scrapbook with Grotesque Designs Copied after Prints
Medium
Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash
Dimensions
Overall: 14 7/8 x 10 15/16 x 3/16 in. (37.8 x 27.8 x 0.5 cm)
Classification
Albums|Ornament & Architecture|Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960
Accession Number
60.643.4(1-14)
Art Historical Context
This charming 16th-century album, housed in the Metropolitan Museum of's Drawings and Prints department, is a treasure trove of grotesque designs meticulously copied after contemporary prints. Created after 1540 by a talented collective—including the Italian engraver Agostinoiano (Agostino dei Musi Flemish artists Cornelis Bos and Cornelis Massys, an anonymous Italian hand—it measures a handy 14⅞ × 10⅞ inches, perfect for an artist's reference scrapbook. These pages capture the whimsical, fantastical motifs that exploded in popularity during the Renaissance, inspired by rediscovered ancient Ro...