Coin cabinet

Charles Percier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dominique Vivant-Denon was an arts administrator (he directed the Medallic Mint as well as the Musée Napoleon, now the Louvre Museum, and several other entities), a collector, and an arbiter of taste during the Napoleonic period. He accompanied the Egyptian campaign of 1798-99 as a draftsman and published the drawings in 1802 as Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypt. One of the sites, the pylon at Ghoos in Upper Egypt, served as the model for the upper part of this medal cabinet, which was intended for Napoleon but remained in Denon's possession. The front and back panels are inlaid with the scarab flanked by uraei on lotus stalks. Each of the twenty-two drawers is inlaid with a silver bee, one wing hinged to provide a pull.

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