Schön Neues Modelbuch (Page 4 verso)
Medium
Woodcut
Dimensions
Overall: 6 1/8 x 7 13/16 in. (15.5 x 19.8 cm)
Classification
Books|Prints|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1920
Accession Number
20.16(4v)
Art Historical Context
This woodcut page comes from *Schön Neues Modelbuch*, a 1597 pattern book published in Nuremberg by Balthasar Caymox with designs by Johann Sibmacher. At just over six by seven inches, the sheet belongs to a larger volume of ornamental motifs intended for practical use by artisans. Woodcut printing, with its crisp lines and repeatable blocks, made such designs affordable and widely available at a time when printed pattern books were transforming how decorative ideas traveled across Europe. Sibmacher’s work reflects the late Renaissance interest in ornament and architecture, offering motifs th...
About the Artist
Johann Sibmacher|Balthasar Caymox · 1590–1611
Johann Sibmacher (c. 1561–1611), also rendered as Johann Ambrosius Siebmacher, was a German copperplate engraver, etcher, and publisher based in Nuremberg whose contributions to heraldic art and decorative pattern design left a legacy that outlasted him by centuries. Active from around 1590 until his death in 1611, Sibmacher worked at the heart of Nuremberg's flourishing book and print trade, a ci...