Goblet (Roemer) with map of the Rhine River

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A highly-skilled diamond point engraver was responsible for the intricately rendered map depicting the course of the Rhine river from Mainz to Utrecht, drawn after an illustrated map published in Cologne in 1555 by Caspar Vogel, a noted mathematician and cartographer. This particularly large and elaborate beaker would have been filled with wine and passed around at festive occasions. Both decorative and functional, the prunts on the stem may have steadied a greasy-fingered drinker’s grip on the glass at a time when forks were not commonly used.

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