Red paste paper book cover
18th century
Medium
Paste paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 1/16 × 10 7/8 in. (20.4 × 27.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926
Accession Number
26.71.9(62)
Art Historical Context
Step into the world of 18th-century bookbinding with this striking *Red Paste Paper Book Cover*, an anonymous masterpiece from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints collection. Crafted in the distinctive medium of paste paper, this sheet measures 8 1/16 × 10 7/8 inches (20.4 × 27.7 cm) and features vibrant red hues achieved through a hands-on technique where colored paste—mixed with pigments, dyes, and sometimes metallic flecks—is brushed onto damp paper to create swirling, marbled patterns. Acquired through the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund in 1926, it exemplifies the everyday arti...
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...