Jugate heads of Marcus Aurelius (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 121–180) and Faustina (Anna Galeria Faustina, d. 175 or 176)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Subjects from Roman history preoccupied collectors in the Baroque era. The twinned countenances of these famous couples, mounted as pendants, were in the Arundel collection in the seventeenth century and the Marlborough collection in the eighteenth. As is often the case with portrait cameos, the stones were manipulated so that their warmer gradations further a suggestion of flesh.

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