Mantel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Italian mantel has a long provenance in New York City. The mantel may have been originally ordered for a house in La Grange Terrace (built 1831–33) on Lafayette Street and was later moved to the Abram Hewitt house at 9 Lexington Avenue (built 1848). It was purchased from the Cooper Union in 1977, an organization chartered by Hewitt's father-in-law, Peter Cooper. The carved tablet at the center of the mantel shows the Greek hero (and Roman god) Hercules at rest. Beside him are his attributes, the lion skin and the club.

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