Rolwerk waar bovenaan en onderaan een vruchtenguirlande doorheen hangt 1550

This ornamental design was printed sometime in the 16th century in the Netherlands. The image presents a profusion of grotesque figures, plant life, and architectural forms, all meticulously engraved. Designs like this one were pattern templates circulated among artisans and their workshops. Such prints offered not merely decoration, but a model for the proper arrangement of ornament. They trained the artisan's eye and hand and reinforced workshop practices. This one is reminiscent of the prints used to circulate designs of goldsmith work. The circulation of such images was bound up with the cultural and economic institutions of its time. The success of pattern books also rested on the development of new consumer markets, whose participants sought the social prestige that came from possessing fashionable household objects. The art historian must ask how prints like this one mediated the flow of visual ideas in its period, and how it contributed to the standardization of design.