Death

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Astride a skeletal steed and outfitted with a quiver of arrows, this figure of Death grips a bow in one hand and points with the other, seemingly singling out the next victim on a battlefield. Death’s plumed turban may be an exoticized reference to the Ottoman Empire, as this statuette was made during a period of heightened military conflict between the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and their Ottoman counterparts. Safely at home, a European collector examining this sculpture near their Kunstkammer would be reminded of the very imminent and violent danger of death at the hands of a long-standing enemy.

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