Half-hour sandglass

Half-hour sandglass

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Considerably cheaper and more durable than clocks, sandglasses also required no maintenance. This finely wrought example for the highest end of the market was probably intended for devotional purposes. It would prompt its user not only to reflect on the passing of time and the transience of life but also, more practically, to time half-hour periods of prayer and meditation. Nuremberg became a center of sandglass production, uniting new glass technologies, local metalworkers, and a ready source of particularly fine reddish sand from the nearby village of Weissenbrunn. [Elizabeth Cleland, 2017]

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Half-hour sandglassHalf-hour sandglassHalf-hour sandglassHalf-hour sandglassHalf-hour sandglass

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.