From arabesques to grotesques and from sphinxes to snails, French printmakers combined ancient decorative motifs with newly invented ones to create designs for everything from jewelry to architectural façades. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century with ornamentation for the royal hunting lodge of Fontainebleau, through garden designs at the palace of Versailles, to patterns for eighteenth-century home furnishings, prints were important sites of invention and served as vehicles for the proliferation of decorative motifs across a variety of media. Drawing primarily from the Blanton’s extensive holdings of French prints, this exhibition invites visitors to look closely at exquisite details, marvel at fantastic forms, and take delight in ornate embellishments that celebrate the creativity of artistic imagination across three centuries.
Curated by Holly Borham, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and European Art, Blanton Museum of Art
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René Boyvin, “Design for a Fountain Supported by Dolphins,” after Rosso Fiorentino, 1560s, engraving, 5 11/16 x 7 3/16 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1988
Pierre Moreau, “Mausoleum,” 1730, etching, 5 ¼ x 7 11/16 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Julie and Lawrence Salander, 2006
Gabriel Huquier, “Panel of Ornament with Eight Figures and a Swing [La Voltigeuse],” after Jean-Antoine Watteau, circa 1725, etching, 25 3/16 x 18 ¼ in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2008
Jean Le Pautre, Two church façades, plate 6 from “Italianate Church Façades,” 1640, etching, 8 7/8 x 6 ¼ in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002
Copy after Pierre Milan and René Boyvin, “The Nymph of Fontainebleau,” after Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio, circa 1560, engraving, 12 3/16 x 19 ¾ in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Purchase through the generosity of the Still Water Foundation, 1990
René Boyvin, “Fantastical Masked Female Head,” after a design by Rosso Fiorentino, 1550s, engraving, 6 ¼ x 4 7/16 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002
Adam Perelle, “La Salle des Festins, Versailles,” published 1704, etching, 8 13/16 x 12 3/16 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002