Moresque

Moresque is the Renaissance European ornament derived from Islamic arabesque: stylized tendrils and leaves that spread in many directions instead of scrolling along a single line. First appearing in fifteenth-century Italy - above all Venice, where Near Eastern metalwork and Muslim craftsmen had long been present - it decorated engraved and damascened metalwork, fine tooled bookbindings, and the printer's ornaments marking the end of chapters. Pattern books carried it through the crafts: the Venetian Esemplario di lavori (1529) offered moresque designs to embroiderers and goldsmiths, and Peter Flötner's Grotesken und Mauresken spread it north. Through the sixteenth century it merged with grotesque and strapwork ornament in Mannerist and Northern Mannerist design, and the word itself - an old form of 'Moorish' - lingered in French and English long after the pattern fell out of fashion.

Defining characteristics

• Many-branched, spreading tendrils rather than a one-directional plant scroll
• Half-leaves set with their longest side running along the stem
• Dense, flat patterning that covers the surface edge to edge
• Human or animal forms dissolving into foliage or geometric strapwork (moresque 'figures')
• Typically paired with strapwork, knotwork, and grotesque motifs on bindings and ornaments

Key figures

• Peter Flötner (c. 1490-1546) — Nuremberg designer of the Grotesken und Mauresken woodcut (printed 1549) that spread the pattern north
• Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-c. 1607) — Antwerp designer whose ornament prints carried moresque and strapwork through Northern Mannerism
• Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) — Venetian printer whose decorated bindings preserve some of the earliest moresque ornament

Example works

• Grotesken und Mauresken — Peter Flötner (1549)
• Esemplario di lavori — Anonymous, Venice (published by Zoppino) (1529)
• Design for Panels (Textile?) Decorated with Moresque and Knotwork Ornament — Master F (c. 1525-1540)

Sources

• Moresque - Wikipedia encyclopedia

← Back to the catalog