Skip to Main Content
Home>Exhibitions>Past>1994>Fanciful Flourishes

Fanciful Flourishes: Ornament in European Graphic Art and Related Objects, 1300-1800

March 20 – August 21, 1994
East Building, Ground Floor

Giovanni Paolo Negroli, Helmet (burgonet) in the Form of a Dolphin Mask, 1540/1545, iron or steel, repoussé, embossed, and chiseled, Widener Collection, 1942.9.355

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: The exhibition of 69 prints and drawings, 8 books, and 13 decorative objects from the Gallery's collection was organized according to types of ornament, such as grotesque, arabesque, and calligraphy, and kinds of objects decorated, including vases and armor.

Organization: The curator was Virginia Tuttle Clayton, associate curator of old master prints, with the assistance of Alison Luchs, associate curator of early European sculpture.

Attendance: 117,532

Brochure: Fanciful Flourishes: Ornament in European Graphic Art and Related Objects, 1300-1800, by Virginia Tuttle Clayton. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1993.