Within the confines of ornamental designs, artists turned elements from nature into otherworldly beings. Creatures, fearsome or playful, graceful or rigid, take their place in dense and sinuous designs for locks, ewers, rings, tapestries, stained glass, and more. These intimately scaled works, often measuring just a few inches, are at times erotically charged and at others moralizing. Centuries later, these drawings and prints open a window to the imagination of artists and designers as the Age of Exploration unfolded around them.
Print, Plate from a Series of Designs for Ewers and Vessels, 1548; Cornelis Floris II (Flemish, ca. 1513-1575); Published by Hieronymus Cock (Netherlandish, ca. 1510-1570); Engravings on paper; Museum purchase through gift of Mrs. John Innes Kane; 1946-3-3
Print, Plate 16, from Livre de bijouterie (Book of Designs for Goldsmiths and Jewelers), ca. 1570; Engraved by René Boyvin (French, ca. 1525-1625) possibly after Leonard Thiry (Flemish, active 1536 d. 1560) or Rosso Fiorentino (Italian, 1494-1540); Published by Paul de la Houve (French, active 17th century); Engraving on paper; Museum purchase through gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt; 1956-23-6-16
Discover your own fragile beasts as you color in delicate designs adapted from the prints and drawings now on view. The Fragile Beasts Coloring Book is available at SHOP Cooper Hewitt. Start coloring with these free, printable pages from the book:
Lecture by Sarah Grant, Curator in the Word and Image department of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Talk given in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Fragile Beasts’ (on view at Cooper Hewitt June 10, 2016 through January 16, 2017). In this talk Sarah Grant gives an overview of the grotesque in all its many fanciful and...
An oarsman reclines on a sphinx’s scaly tail in this design for a pendant. Enameled, bejeweled, and dangling from a noblewoman’s gown, the imperious sphinx would appear fully tamed. Like the other marine monsters in this series of pendant designs by Hans Collaert, she symbolizes the sea’s abundance, harnessed by Flemish fishermen and merchants. These...
A lion and a hare are composed entirely of scrolling acanthus leaves in this late-seventeenth-century engraving. It is the fifth plate from a suite of six designs for gold ornament, entitled Neu-ersonnene Gold-Schmieds Grillen (New Designs for Ornaments in Gold). The acanthus motif, whose origins date to ancient Greece and Rome, was omnipresent in European...
Edited by Caitlin Condell, Assistant Curator of Drawings, Prints & Graphic Design Illustrated by Magali An Berthon Download a PDF of the entire coloring book! (31 MB) Discover hidden monsters and awaken serpents, chimeras, dragons, and gargoyles in this coloring book inspired by grotesque ornament prints from the 16th and 17th centuries. Animals become alternately...
