Armchair (part of a set)

Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This piece is part of a set of twelve armchairs and two settees ordered in Paris in 1753 by Baron Johann Ernst Bernstorff, Danish ambassador to the court of Versailles between 1744 and 1751. After returning to Denmark, Bernstorff commissioned this seat furniture for the tapestry room of his new residence in Copenhagen that was hung with four wall tapestries of the Amours des Dieux series woven at the Beauvais Manufactory. This chair illustrates how French furniture and furnishings were imported all over Europe for the enrichment of palaces and mansions far from Paris. The tapestry covers are woven with animal and bird subjects after designs by the painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755).

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