Panels of Ornament, nos. CLXXXVI–CXCII, plate 36 from "Designs for Various Ornaments"
Artist and publisher Michelangelo Pergolesi Italian
Not on view
These designs, numbered CLXXXVI to CXCII, include panels of ornament with military trophies and two medallions that showing Leda and the swan. At center there is a vase with a handle of entwined snakes and a body decorated with swans near two dripping fountains below. The print comes from a group that Pergolesi made and published serially in London between 1777 and 1792. There is no title page, but a prospectus of ca. 1786 described the group as: "A great variety of original designs of vases, figures, medallions, friezes, pilasters, panels and other ornaments, in the Etruscan and grotesque style." The complete set contains 67 plates numbered 1-66 (two are numbered 56), with designs within the plates irregularly numbered 1-435 (in Roman numerals at first, then with Arabic numbers). In 1801, after Pergolesi's death, four additional plates of designs were published by a bookseller Dulouchamp (or Dulonchamp).