Watch

Daniel Vauchez

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

French enthusiasm for ballooning was sparked by the June 4, 1783, ascent of a hot air balloon created by Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier. Four months later, a Montgolfier balloon with a crew of a sheep, a duck, and a rooster was launched at Versailles in the presence of Louis XVI (1754–1793) and Marie Antoinette (1755–1793). The first human flight, which took place on November 21 that year, was witnessed by Benjamin Franklin, among others. The Museum’s watch is a typical novelty, and it demonstrates how greatly early attempts at human flight captured the French imagination. In the enamel a balloon is launched by three men, one carrying burning straw with which to ignite the flame that heated the air in the balloon.

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