Inkwell with a rampant lion

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The three masks on the body of this inkwell, executed in an international Baroque idiom, could have been produced almost anywhere in northern Europe. A hole in the lion’s front right paw would have secured a quill. The inscription has the character of a vendor’s name, and there is something of an English feel to it. An example of this type is in the Museo Civico dell’Età Cristiana, Brescia, and another, listed with the New York dealer Anthony Blumka in 2018, has two masks.[1] Where the central mask appears on our inkwell, Blumka’s bears a separately cast, concave, undeciphered coat of arms. -JDD Footnotes (For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.) 1. Nicodemi 1920, p. 473 (as Venetian, 16th century); Lion inkwell, Italy (Tuscany), ca. 1600, bronze, at http://www.blumkagallery.com/metalwork-1.

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