Ornate Decorative Designs

Illustrations of intricate ornamental patterns used in architectural decoration, featuring both floral and geometric motifs.

Ornamentics and Uilen, Bernard Willem Wierink, 1910 print paper fable of Reynard the Fox

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Schmalz Otto (1861-1906), travel sketches from Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain (June 26, 1893): Messina: Marmormosaik in S. Gregorio (view). Tusche watercolor on paper, 42.4 x 30.6 cm (including scan edges) Schmalz Otto (1861-1906): Reiseskizzen aus Österreich, Deutschland, Italien und Spanien

$Design for a Gold Earring with Two Buckets and Pulley ca. 1870-1900 Anonymous, French, 19th century Drawing with a design for a gold earring with two water bucket motifs that is part of a collection of 85 drawings with figurative designs for earrings, brooches, pendants and other jewels, possibly real-sized, created with graphite and gouache and heightened with gold inside lithograph frames. These designs are all characteristic of the period between 1870 and 1900, when jewelry design saw a great degree of innovation and creativity in both style and technique. Some of the most important innovations that took place at this time included the setting of diamonds without metal on the back to reinforce the refraction of light on the cut surfaces of the stones, and the use of gold granules and cannetille (scrolls of metal strips) in the creation of fine metal surfaces. (Semi-)precious stones continued to be used in jewelry design at this time, especially with the discovery of diamond mines in$