Design (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's Forge

Design (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's Forge

Giovanni Giardini

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Full-scale working drawing for a large oval gilt silver dish with a wide border. The central oval compartment shows a scene of Venus at the forge of Vulcan. the surrounding border is decorated with weapon trophies, close to the well-known designs by Polidoro da Caravaggio, and contains four plaques or insets showing Gods, among which Neptune, Diana, Venus and a third female goddess (possibly in silver or grisailles enamel painting).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's ForgeDesign (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's ForgeDesign (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's ForgeDesign (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's ForgeDesign (Full-Scale Working Drawing) for a Large Oval Silver Dish with Silver Gilt Border Showing Vulcan's Forge

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.