Glass Blowers of Murano

Charles Frederick Ulrich

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ulrich studied in Munich and spent most of his career abroad, painting picturesque scenes of everyday life. Here, he showed workers blowing glass, a craft revived in Venice during the late nineteenth century. The setting is the city’s glassmaking center on the island of Murano. Ulrich’s fascination with artisan subjects paralleled the international Arts and Crafts movement, which valued old-fashioned handicraft over industrial production. The painting won a substantial cash award in 1886 at the National Academy of Design’s second Prize Fund Exhibition, reflecting the degree to which an international taste had emerged in American art.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art