Painting of a stoneware jug, a glass of wine, a peeled lemon and bread on a pewter plate

Surface & Pattern

Printed paper from 1500 to 1900. In the main hall until the end of the season, every day from 10 to 8.

Engraved letters A to F built from figures, flowers and butterflies

Letters made of people and butterflies

Before paper became white and empty, printers dressed it up: alphabets built of figures, patterns for book covers, advertisements that were small pictures in themselves.

The exhibition gathers some fifty sheets from four centuries. Most can be seen up close, through the magnifier you are given at the door.

From the exhibition

Sheet of paper printed all over with a dense red marbled pattern — Paper with a red pattern, 18th c.

Sheet of paper with a blue and white wavy pattern scattered with small red sprigs — Paper with a blue pattern, 19th c.

Sheet of paper printed all over with small teal and red flecks on white — Speckled paper, 19th c.

Page of a sixteenth-century pattern book: a grid of small woodcut flower and leaf ornaments — A pattern book, 1563

Etched Roman capitals A to Z set over a dense ground of scrolling foliage, by Daniel Hopfer — Daniel Hopfer, Roman alphabet, c. 1520

Ornate lithographed advertisement for a printing firm, framed by small scenes and scrollwork — A lithographer's advertisement, 19th c.

From the curator

These sheets were never made to hang on a wall. They were wrappers, patterns, advertisements and exercises. That is why they say more about printing than many paintings do: you can see where a hand hurried, where the ink ran thin, which pattern someone loved and repeated.

A pattern is patience you can see.

Lea curator of the exhibition

Past exhibitions

Japanese woodblock print of figures with umbrellas walking in the rain beneath a pine

Floating World

Japanese woodblock prints, 1780–1850.

About the exhibition

Painting of old books, a candlestick, a jug and sheet music on a table

Still Lifes

Books, fruit and candlesticks from three centuries.

Watercolour of a red and yellow climbing lily with long green leaves

Botanica

Plants as they were drawn before photography.