Dress ornament (heftel)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dress ornaments were the height of fashion for Saxon women in Transylvania. They were originally worn as bodice clasps, but as rich women demanded larger and heavier examples so as to display their wealth, these pieces were also sometimes suspended from a cloth band around the neck. This object is among the few Hungarian goldsmith pieces that the Museum had before the gift of the Salgo Collection.

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