Model for a Proposed Monument to Commemorate the Invention of the Balloon

Clodion (Claude Michel)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The first successful ascension of the hot-air balloon was achieved by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. It lasted only ten minutes but was widely celebrated. By the end of the year, the French crown floated a proposed monument. Clodion was one of seven talented sculptors to compete. His airy Rococo flight of fancy-in which putti pile bundles of hay to launch the balloon, guided by Fame and propelled by Aeolus-is difficult to imagine in marble. Gradually, hot-air ballooning spread to the point of being commonplace, and the project was dropped.

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