Tobacco box

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The box is oblong with rounded ends. The cover is similar to that of Number v, 1. The calendar is flanked by portraits of Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory XIII, inscribed, respectively: Voor 'chris 45 (45 B.C.), and 1482. The box is dated, on the bottom line of the calendar, 1781. The underside carries a log timer or table to measure the speed of ships. It is surmounted by a medallion containing the image of Amerigo Vespucci. This portrait bears the date 1497. Inscribed at the bottom: Den eeuwig duerenden almenak (The everlasting almanac). For a fuller discussion of this box, see the text, above. Rims are lined and edges molded. The front side has the following inscription: Reght door zee (Straight ahead). A similar box is illustrated in Wolf-Dieter Könenkamp, Iserlohner Tabaksdosen, Bilder einer Kriegszeit (Münster, 1982) p. 15, fig. 10. See also Ernst Dossmann, lserlohner Tabaksdosen. erzählen (Iserlohn, 1981) pp. 21, 22; figs. 9, 10.

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