Eurydice

Circle of Antonio Lombardo

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This relief evokes the love between the classical scholar Gaspare Fantuzzi (ca. 1465/70–1536) and his wife Dorotea Castelli, who were both members of patrician families in Bologna and were married in 1502. The inscription on the reverse of the first version of the Eurydice, in which the faithful wife of Orpheus is bitten by a snake (illustrated on the label), reads: "Gaspare Fantuzzi of Bologna dedicates this to the most sweet alliance of marriage and to conjugal love." This work must have been commissioned by Fantuzzi himself to celebrate his marriage. The "signature" of the Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli is a later addition.

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