Moors, from a set of costume plates of different nations

Art Historical Context

Johann Wilhelm Baur’s etching *Moors*, created between 1600 and 1640, belongs to a series of costume plates that captured the dress of various nations for European audiences. As a German artist active during the Baroque era, Baur specialized in small-scale prints that combined precise observation with decorative flair. The medium of etching allowed him to render intricate patterns in fabric and headwear with fine, fluid lines, making these images both informative and visually appealing. Such costume studies reflected the growing European fascination with distant cultures during an age of expanding trade and exploration. “Moors” typically referred to North African peoples in period imagery, and prints like this one helped shape contemporary ideas about exotic dress while serving practical purposes for theater designers, tailors, and the curious public. Their modest size made them easy to collect or bind into books, spreading visual knowledge across social classes. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1960 as part of the Elisha Whittelsey Collection, the print survives as a charming example of how 17th-century artists used the reproducible etching technique to document and romanticize the world’s diversity.

About the Artist

Johann Wilhelm Baur · 1607–1642

Johann Wilhelm Baur was a German draughtsman, painter, and printmaker who came of age in the early seventeenth century and built his reputation through the production of finely detailed illustrations and miniatures. Though the precise details of his training remain incompletely documented, Baur developed his skills in the tradition of German and Northern European graphic art, showing influences fr...