Album with Designs for Ornament and Various Objects

Gilles Paul Cauvet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles and Jayne Wrightsman’s eye for fine detail is captured in their acquisitions of studies for furniture, objets de vertu (small luxury items), and ornament. Among their earliest donations were drawings by the French sculptor and cabinetmaker Gilles Paul Cauvet. Throughout his career, Cauvet made designs for both monumental architecture and small, finely crafted objects. His rendering of a frieze with acanthus scrolls and sphinxes is an example of his delicate hand, as are the numerous drawings—from sketches to highly finished renderings—found in this album of designs for fountains, vases, wall panels, furniture, and ornament. The works correspond closely to Cauvet’s printed oeuvre, which was published in 1777 under the title Recueil d’ornemens à l’usage des jeunes artistes (Collection of Ornament Designs for Use by Young Artists).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art