Sheet with overall square and star pattern
19th century
Medium
Relief print (wood or metal)
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 5/16 × 7 3/16 in. (11 × 18.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1939
Accession Number
39.13.269
Art Historical Context
This delicate 19th-century relief, titled *Sheet with Overall Square and Star Pattern*, showcases a repeating geometric motif of interlocking squares and stars. Created anonymously using a wood or metal block the small sheet measures just 4 5/16 × 7 3/16 inches (11 × 18.3 cm), making it compact design sample likely intended for reference in workshops or pattern books. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, entered the collection through the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund in 1939. Relief printing, the technique employed here, involves carving away negative space ...
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...