Filatrice

Henry Kirke Brown

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the late 1840s Americans developed the industrial means to produce fine art bronzes, relying on European immigrant labor as well as copper and other metals mined from Indigenous homelands. Sculptures modeled and cast in this country were heralded as affordable and democratic, symbolizing independence from European foundries. In 1849 the American Art-Union began distributing statuettes to its subscribers in an annual lottery, increasing public awareness of bronze and situating it within a mass market. Twenty examples of Filatrice (Italian for "spinner") were commissioned for that purpose and cast in Brown’s rudimentary foundry in his Brooklyn studio.

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