Page from Festons und Dekorative Gruppen

Unidentified photographer

1893

A collotype-printed page that pairs ornamental plant studies—lush flowering stems beside long, crinkled leaves—created as a visual model for decorators and pattern designers to reproduce and adapt.

What arrests you is the vertical split: a dense, soft-focus cascade of layered blossoms on the left contrasted with a spare, sculptural arrangement of ribbed, dried leaves on the right, rendered in a rich, velvety range of grays.

Dating from 1893, this image illustrates how photography and collotype reproduction furnished the decorative arts with ready-made motifs and textures, helping to disseminate and standardize ornament for designers, publishers, and manufacturers at the turn of the century.

Palette

Art Terms

Collotype Photography Still life Illustrated book Art Nouveau(New Art) Studio photography

Exhibitions

A History of the Modern Poster

1941

Forgotten Photographers

1951

Nineteenth-Century Photographs from the Arnold H. Crane Collection

1979

Twenty Lithographs: Graphic Art Processes

1941