Venezia

Larkin Goldsmith Mead

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Idealized representations of geographic locales—cities, countries, and continents—were particularly appealing to nineteenth-century Americans. This allegorical bust may be a wedding portrait: Mead not only honors his new wife, whom he met in Venice, but also offers a tribute to the city traditionally known as the Bride of the Sea. The figure wears a tiara of beads and a central scallop shell that features a small gondola. She emerges from a textured sea-foam bodice referencing Venice’s water setting. Mead worked in Florence for more than half a century, relying on Italian materials and labor to create sculptures for the American market.

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