Miniature secretary incorporating a watch

James Cox

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bejeweled butterflies and flowers that tremble in the slightest breath of air adorn this whimsical object, which plays tunes on a hidden music box and incidentally tells the time. The spring mechanism that powers the music is wound by inserting a key into a hole hidden behind one of rosettes near the bulls that support the cabinet. Based on actual rococo European cabinet designs, but with some improbable additions, the miniature is known to have been in the collection of Princess Z. M. Youssoupof in Saint Petersburg in 1904. Although it has been said to have been taken from China after the Boxer Rebellion in 1899, it may, in fact, have been imported into Russia long before.

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