Linen Press

Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts Colony

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Byrdcliffe Arts and Crafts Colony was founded in 1902 outside of Woodstock, New York, by Englishman Ralph Whitehead. Inspired by John Ruskin, Whitehead invited independent craftsmen and designers to work in traditional crafts, which included furniture, pottery, textiles, and metalwork. This oak linen press epitomizes Byrdcliffe furniture in its simple, rectilinear shape, hand-carved panels, natural wood surfaces finished with transparent stains in nature's colors. The carved panels, of stylized sassafras leaves, were designed by Edna M. Walker, who graduated from Brooklyn's Pratt School of Design where she studied with Arthur Wesley Dow. The cabinet remained in the Whitehead family who generously made it a partial gift to the Museum.

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