Graham Arader Galleries and the works of Adrien de Montigny...

I love strap work....and Montigny was one of the early decorative artists that did it so well.

Graham Arader has an impressive collection of Montigny watercolors in his two NYC galleries. I was in NYC recently and had contacted Mr. Arader prior to the visit to set up a time to see some of the work.

The colors are still brilliant done in the late 1500's in watercolor on vellum. Graham has a detailed article on them on his blog.

Montigny used decorative borders of floral motifs and strap woven strap work to frame the villages and pastoral scenes.

From his very detailed work, we can learn what trees grew in the area and even identify the buildings.

(source)
"Assembled over four hundred years ago, the collection of watercolor albums commissioned by Duke Charles de Croy constitutes one of the most remarkable historical records of the towns and villages of the Low Countries of the 16th and 17th centuries, and a foremost artistic expression of the French Late-Renaissance style"(source)

"Many show examples of highly distinctive strapwork decoration, a hallmark of the late European Mannerism. Strapwork was widely popular throughout the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a type of ornament generally employed for borders that was composed of bands with the appearance of having been cut from leather or sheet metal, then twisted and rolled into fantastic shapes.  The origins of strapwork are to be found in Italian art at the beginning of the 16th century, and interlacing bandwork or strapwork appeared on bookbindings in Italy and Spain from the mid-15th century into the 16th. Early examples of bandwork used to articulate fields of ornament occur in Raphael's decoration of the Vatican Loggia(1518-19). Closer to de Montigny's center of activity, Rosso Fiorentino introduced a developed and highly individual form of strapwork in the stucco frieze of the Gallerie of Francois I at Fountainbleau."(source)

Work by Adrian Card

If you have a similar love of strap work, contemporary decorative artist Adrian Card will be teaching a three day class on it in San Francisco at Lynne Rutter's studio in September. I will be there and hope to meet other like minded decorative enthusiasts! Details on Adrian's class are here.