Center table

Gustave Herter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

German-born and trained Gustave Herter produced this extraordinary center table around the time he established his own furniture and decorating firm at 547 Broadway. The robustly carved figural legs and bold, curvaceous form reflect Herter’s European training and sensibilities. The table’s delicate marquetry top, which may have been imported from Paris, speaks to the prevailing taste for French style among American patrons. Simultaneously, the four enigmatic and exoticized Native American female forms with gilded turtle breastplates suggest a desire to explore and formulate a national iconography.

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