Virgin and Child Enthroned

Christoph Angermair

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The elongated proportions of this statuette and the whorls of the Christ Child’s coiffure reveal a debt to the Mannerist style brought to Germany from Italy by the Munich court sculptors Hubert Gerhard and Hans Reichl. Although they both worked primarily in bronze, they influenced Angermair, a court sculptor to Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, who specialized in small-scale ivory carvings for wealthy princes and merchants. Natural philosophy connected material to the divine, so ivory statuettes of religious figures were an appropriate addition to collectors’ Kunstkammern.

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