Chessmen (32) and board

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The pawns hold shields with heraldic arms on them indicating the opposing parties, but they do not appear to be valid. The set probably represents Rome against German tribes, but in a German style that has prototypes for the knights and kings in the seventeenth century, Here the figures have become wooden and lack subtlety in modeling. Such cast sets, however, were popular in the so-called "Historical period," around 1860.

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