Horizontal Panel with a Row of Flowers Above a Frieze with Figures in a Landscape, from Livre Nouveau de Fleurs Tres-Util
Medium
Etching and burin
Dimensions
Sheet: 2 15/16 × 4 5/8 in. (7.5 × 11.7 cm)
Classification
Ornament & Architecture|Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.600.261(7)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate etching, *Horizontal Panel with a Row of Flowers Above a Frieze with Figures in a Landscape*, comes from the *Livre Nouveau de Fleurs Très-Util* (New Book of Very Useful Flowers), published in 1645 by French engravers Nicolas Cochin the Elder and Balthazar Moncornet. Measuring just under 3 by 5 inches, this small sheet exemplifies the intricate ornamental prints popular in mid-17th-century France, blending a vibrant row of blooming flowers and leaves atop a narrative frieze of men and women amid a pastoral landscape. Created using etching and burin techniques—etching for fluid l...