May 11 - August 29, 1999
Karen B. Cohen Gallery and Charles Z. Offin Gallery, second floor
Some of the earliest extant northern European prints and books — all from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exceptional collection of this material — will be presented in Devotions and Diversions: Prints and Books from the Late Middle Ages in Northern Europe , from May 11 through August 29, 1999, in the Museum's Karen B. Cohen Gallery and Charles Z. Offin Gallery. Forty-one German, Netherlandish, and French woodcuts and metalcuts (many of them unique impressions), several Netherlandish woodcut blockbook pages, and about twenty illustrated books, including a number of printed French Books of Hours, will be on view.
The exhibition focuses on the mid- to late 15th century, the historical moment that marks the beginning of printmaking in northern Europe. Woodblocks had long been used to print patterns on textiles, but this venerable technology was put to new and more significant applications beginning in the late 14th century, when paper first became widely available. Because paper could be produced more cheaply, was more portable, and was better suited to printing than cloth, it began to be used for multiple copies of pictorial images. Soon, its capability for holding text, either in tandem with illustrations or alone, was exploited and, with the invention of movable type, printed books as well as individual prints proliferated.
The actual means of printmaking in the late Middle Ages will be represented by a rare printing block, carved with an image of the Crucifixion on one side and St. Christopher on the other. Made of tightly grained pear wood, so as to withstand the pressure of the printing press, this object attests to the high standards of artistry and craftsmanship attained by printmakers of the period.
Many of the prints in the exhibition are religious in nature. Local saints were a favorite subject and their images, printed in multiples, were sold at pilgrimage sites as objects of devotion and mementos. Although they once existed in large numbers, many prints from this period are now extant in only one or two impressions. Some of those that survived to this day did so because they were glued to the inner covers of books or other protective surfaces. One work in the exhibition, a French woodcut from the 1490s depicting the Nativity, will be shown still attached to the inner lid of a hinged travelling box of roughly the same age.
Among the approximately twenty illustrated books on view will be Books of Hours, a number of herbals, and Bernhard von Breydenbach's Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam of 1486, a rare early travel book that features detailed views of Jerusalem and cities on the pilgrimage route to the Holy Land.
Related Exhibition
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Prayer Book for a Queen: The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, which will be on view in the adjoining gallery also from May 11 through August 29, 1999.
Exhibition Organizers
The exhibition is organized by Suzanne Boorsch, Associate Curator, Drawings and Prints, and Nadine Orenstein, Associate Curator, Drawings and Prints. Exhibition design is by Michael Batista, Exhibition Designer; graphic design is by Constance Norkin, Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Zack Zanolli, Lighting Designer.
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January 11, 1999
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