Ornamental Studies (verso), 88.GA.90

This verso side of a drawing sheet displays faint metalpoint and ink sketches of decorative foliate scrolls and volutes. In the center, a small, schematic grotesque figure or mask is visible among the ornaments. The paper is heavily annotated with later handwritten attributions to Fra Filippo Lippi and the Florentine school, several of which have been struck through.

These ornamental sketches represent the Renaissance fascination with 'grottesche' motifs, which were rediscovered in the ruins of Nero's Golden House. This style of decoration influenced the conceptualization of the 'monstrous' and the fluid boundaries between nature and art, a common theme in Renaissance Neoplatonic and Hermetic aesthetics.