Plate of Goldsmith's Ornaments with Scrolling Motifs

Etching with designs for goldsmith ornaments, possibly created by Friedrich Jacob Morrison, a German jewelry designer active from 1693 to 1697. His designs ranged from ornamental religious subjects to jeweled sword hilts and fans, and included different types of jewelry. This kind of etching was produced to be collected by metalworkers, especially goldsmiths, and artists, for them to copy in their own designs. The plate contains large scrolling motifs with stylized acanthus leaves, which form upward from two festoons with thin ribbon bows and stylized leaves, framing a central area that contains two roundels, one larger than the other, containing richly ornate designs with thin, scrolling, stylized acanthus leaves, and two small, thin friezes, also with scrolling, stylized acanthus leaves. All these design motifs were commonly present in gold ornaments and jewelry of the seventeenth century, revealing an exhuberant design style, characterized by dramatic, rich ornamental patterns with foliage motifs of scrolling garlands of leaves and flowers.