Watch

Christian Gottlieb Stiehl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This watchcase displays a technique of setting hardstones in gold that is usually associated with Johann Christian Neuber (1736–1808) of Dresden, although it was probably inspired by enameled gold watchcases made in Paris a few years earlier. Stiehl, who held appointments to Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (1670–1733), and his successor, Augustus III (1696–1763), is known for his floral designs, which are freer and less geometric than Neuber’s. The movement may also have been made in Dresden. P.J. Marperger, author of Horologiographia (Dresden, 1723), a book on the watch and clock market in Germany, wrote that “some important people . . . simply cannot appreciate anything that does not come from France or England.” He advocated a heavy tax on foreign clocks and watches in addition to allowing accredited (meaning German) clockmakers to engrave London or Geneva on their dials.

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