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Album or Scrapbook with Grotesque Designs Copied after Prints

Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi)|Cornelis Bos|Cornelis Massys|Anonymous, Italian, 16th century

after 1540

Album or Scrapbook with Grotesque Designs Copied after Prints by Agostino Veneziano (Agostino dei Musi)|Cornelis Bos|Cornelis Massys|Anonymous, Italian, 16th century

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...

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