Metropolitan Museum Of Art Essay

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"Cutting A Lacca up Povera Berchems, Watteaus, and Audrans": Secretary at The Metropolitan Art Museum DANIELLE 0. of KISLUK-GROSHEIDE Associate Curator,European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Mademoiselle Charlotte Aisse (1693wrote from Paris to her friend and 1733) confidante, Madame Calandrini, in Geneva: "We are here at the height of a new passion for cutting up colored engravings.... Everyone, great and small, is snipping away.These cuttings are pasted on sheets of cardboard and then varnished. They are made into wall panels, screens, and fire boards. There are books and engravings costing up to 200 livres; women are mad enough to cut up engravings worth loo livres apiece. If this…show more content…
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1996 METROPOLITAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 31 over your Prints a Piece of clean Paper, and with your The notes for this article begin on page 95. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Metropolitan Museum Journal ® www.jstor.org C8x 8 ' Ti x 1 6cz qe r-tV rC 'Cg61 'punA jaq:olai '1Vjo umnasnp uiilodoJlap aiqL 'uo 'w ' 'sluld aSednoxap quiM 'irelaaS pa-irotap poo.Muapu!lp9aqsiuje pur 'papp!s 'paiured 'pa9ure %--oVLi -rD '(a9!ua) urellI a'iani 'rr '~(-~ 7…show more content…
More cut-out decorations become visible when the doors are open. The two large figures on the inside of both doors, a seated woman playing her guitar and the standing Pierrot, are derived from designs by Watteau (Figures 9, 25, 26). They are part of the series of six plates engraved by Cr6py, already mentioned above (Figures 7, 8). Only minor changes have occurred in the composition: the most noticeable are the two decorative masks shown underneath the main figuresthey have been interchanged on the cabinet doors. In addition, the arched and meandering lines ending in husk motifs that flank the top shell in Watteau's design have been placed lower, and some of the smallest ornamental details have been omitted. The artist used reversed copies of the prints by Cr6py and showed remarkable dexterity in cutting out very fine decoration. Allegorical figures derived from another series of French prints were pasted on either side of the door frames and in the central niche (Figures 25-27). Symbolizing seven months, these figures represent various gods and goddesses with their symbols and signs of the zodiac in a fanciful architectural frame. From left to right, starting with the left-hand door, we see Vulcan as September and Minerva as October. In the niche we find Neptune as February,

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