Tobacco box

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The box is oval. On the lid is a roundel showing the prophet Elijah seated in a landscape and receiving food from two ravens (I Kings 17:4): Inscribed below is: Elias. Two figures in early-18th-century dress, standing on pedestals, flank the medallion. The man holds a hat, the woman a fan. They are rendered against a crudely hatched background with drapery. The roundel on the underside shows the nude figure of an angel next to a truncated tree. This may illustrate I Kings 19:4-5, in which Elijah, resting under a juniper tree, is awakened by an angel who gives him food. Two figures similar to those on the cover flank the medallion. With lined rims and molded edges. The borders and sides are decorated with chevron ornament.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art