Box

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This carved casket, which may have held documents, bears the arms and the cipher of Henri, marquis de Senneterre (1600–1681), made marshal of France in 1651 by Louis XIV. The casket may have been commissioned by Senneterre to celebrate this appointment. High-relief personifications of Victory support the cartouche with the coat of arms on the lid. Representations of the four elements appear on the front and back; Earth with a cornucopia and Water in the form of a river god with a ship’s rudder flank the marshal’s cipher in front.

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