Book cover with overall splotchy pattern
19th century
Medium
Relief print (wood or metal)
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 1/4 × 6 13/16 in. (21 × 17.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1939
Accession Number
39.13.94
Art Historical Context
This unassuming yet charming 19th-century book cover, created anonymously through relief printing on wood or metal, exemplifies everyday artistry of the industrial age. Measuring just 8¼ × 6⅞ inches, its sheet features an overall splotchy pattern—a textured, abstract design that likely served both decorative and protective purposes for bound volumes. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, entered the collection via the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund in 1939, highlighting the value placed on humble printed ephemera. Relief printing, the technique used here, invol...
About the Artist
Anonymous
In the vast tapestry of art history, "Anonymous" stands not as a singular individual but as a collective designation for countless unidentified creators whose works have endured across millennia. These artists, spanning prehistoric cave painters to medieval illuminators and folk craftsmen, produced the foundational layers of human visual culture. Prior to the Renaissance, when individual fame emer...