Elevation for a Wall Decoration Scheme for a Church Interior with Scenes dedicated to the Legend of the Holy Cross
Anonymous, Central European, 18th century
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The drawings depicts an elevation of the decoration surrounding a doorway or entrance portal in a religious interior. On either side of the central door frame are placed two statues representing the cardinal virtues. The second tier of decoration is marked by a central square compartment with a painted scene, and two smaller shields with oval compartments with additional scenes. square compartment with a painted scene and two smaller shields with oval compartments with additional scenes. Their subjects center around the Legend of the Holy Cross, and the scenes may depict the feastdays associated with the apocryphal story of its rediscovery, raising and eventual return to Jerusalem. A resurgence of this iconography is typical for Southern Germany and Hungary during the late Baroque and Rococo periods, and scenes from the Legend of the Holy Cross were incorporated in murals and ceiling decorations. The structure is crowned by a central sculpture group consisting of several serves, carrying an abbot holding up the Holy Cross and a laurel wreath. A coat of arms is placed on either side, the one on the left showing six crowns, each paired with a crescent moon, of which one in the center faces the right side up and the others are depicted upside down. The coat of arms on the right similarly shows six motifs in the form of an hour glass paired with a crescent moon, and, again, the central hour glass is depicted right side up, while all others are depicted at a 90 degree angle. The significance of these two crests is as of yet unknown.
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.