Newes Modelbuch in Kupffer (Page 40r)
1604
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Overall: 5 11/16 x 7 1/16 x 3/4 in. (14.5 x 18 x 1.9 cm)
Classification
Books|Prints|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Charles R. Richards, 1929
Accession Number
29.59.3(40r)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This etching comes from Johann Sibmacher’s *Newes Modelbuch in Kupffer*, a 1604 pattern book published in Nuremberg. As page 40r reveals, the volume offered printed designs intended for embroidery, lace, and other decorative arts. Sibmacher, active in the early seventeenth century, specialized in such practical yet elegant ornament, helping spread fashionable motifs across Europe at a time when printed pattern books were becoming essential tools for artisans and homemakers alike. The medium of etching was ideally suited to the task. Its fine, precise lines captured the intricate curves and sy...
About the Artist
Johann Sibmacher · 1590–1611
Johann Sibmacher (c. 1561–1611), also rendered as Johann Ambrosius Siebmacher, was a German copperplate engraver, etcher, and publisher based in Nuremberg whose contributions to heraldic art and decorative pattern design left a legacy that outlasted him by centuries. Active from around 1590 until his death in 1611, Sibmacher worked at the heart of Nuremberg's flourishing book and print trade, a ci...