Stove Plate

Hibernia Furnace

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Firebacks and single plates from stoves are about all that survive to remind us of the great iron foundries of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania that were part of the largest industry in colonial America. The ornamental plates, though of the basest of metals, were cast from mahogany patterns, the handiwork of the best furniture carvers. Early examples were decorated with biblical quotations and static arrangements of hearts and tulips that followed German precedents (47.137.10). Plates made after 1770 and decorated with the playful naturalistic motifs of the English rococo, dismissed as decadent by early twentieth-century collectors, are now exceedingly rare. This plate, without foliage, features a ribbon-like banner inscribed "ROSS & BIRD + HIBERNIA FURNACE 1782." George Ross and Mark Bird Jr., leading entrepreneurs in the Pennsylvania iron business, operated the Hibernia Furnace in Morris County, New Jersey, in the 1780s.

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