Diomedes and the Palladium

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Some of the grandest figures of their respective eras, from Lorenzo the Magnificent to Catherine the Great, were ardent collectors of ancient glyptics. Connoisseurs were well aware of the praise that the writers of antiquity had heaped on specific cameo carvers. Copies initially reached the wider public in the form of bronze replicas and, later, engravings. Inevitably, the rage for cameos entailed a certain amount of forgery and twisting of facts. The carnelian original, owned by Pope Paul II, then by Lorenzo de' Medici, is now in the Museo Archeologico, Naples. Such collector's pieces became famous through cast copies and are often more familiar to us as positive impressions than as intaglios.

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