Cup with cover

David Cramer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sixteenth century was Augsburg’s golden age. The city was wealthy from its silver and copper mines and hometown to the Fugger family of merchants. With offices throughout Europe, their astonishing success was based, in part, on canny access to mining concerns and agricultural land—concessions given by nobility as securities against massive loans the Fuggers made them. The exceedingly delicate scrollwork on this cup reveals the effect sought by the Hungarian silversmith of the beaker (see 2010.110.4). The broad strapwork design on the tankard (see 11.93.16) typifies the style of successful local artists like the printmaker Bernhard Zan. [Elizabeth Cleland, 2017]

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