Cupboard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Large two-stage oak cupboards were the most elaborate pieces of furniture in seventeenth-century New England homes. They were used for storing textiles, silver, and other valued objects. Their scale and ornamental richness bespoke the prosperity and status of their owners. This superlative example was made by an unidentified shop in northern Essex County, noted for its complex joinery and decoration, featuring ebonized turnings that freely interpret classical columns and channel-molded drawer fronts with applied bosses arranged in rhythmic linear patterns across their length.

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