Armchair (fauteuil à la reine)

Jacques Gondouin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although intended to furnish Marie-Antoinette’s grand cabinet intérieur at the château de Versailles during the winter months, the chair and the rest of the set were removed in 1783, when the grand cabinet intérieur was redecorated and placed in the queen’s billiard room on the floor above. Sold during the French Revolution, the entire set of furniture was acquired by the American statesman Gouverneur Morris, who served as minister of the United States in France from 1792 to 1794. The pieces were subsequently sent to Morrisania, Morris’s country estate in the Bronx.

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