In the 1500s, knowledge of the human body was pretty limited. The first known anatomical flap prints were produced in Strasbourg, France, in 1538 by Heinrich Vogtherr. The German artist, printer, and poet pieced together multiple layers of pressed linen so that readers could open up his illustrations to reveal the positions of major organs in both male and female figures. Turns out people were really into this idea. Anatomy students started making these as a hands-on learning tool. As you can see, we still had a lot to learn about human anatomy but I love the enthusiam.

Mary Delany was an English aristocrat who was basically forced to marry an old dude when she was 17. Luckily he died and she got to marry someone who sucked less. She was always into crafts, but it wasn't until her second husband died that she became a true collage queen. She began to imitate flowers in paper collages at age 72! Her work was extremely detailed and acurate to the plant specimens she studied. People sent her specimens from all over the world to replicate.

Above is a photo of the oldest surviving patchwork quilt. Are quilts even art? I must say, it is quite the hot button issue these days. They seem to exist at an intersection of craft, art, and design. Regardless, the patchwork quilt is an form of collage that became an iconic part of U.S. culture. In the 1600s, a technique of printing designs on cotton fabric was developed in India. Because it was so rad and a threat to the British textile industry, it was banned in England and its colonies. So it got pretty hard to get. Ladies started cutting pieces of it to incorporate into quilts. The technique was called "broderie perse". This was the beginning of the pathwork quilt. But that's a story for the 1800s.