Chessmen (32) and box-board

Andreas Schluter, Danzig and the Court of Berlin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The pieces and the board they came with were probably made by Friederich Donaleitis of Königsberg in 1778 from a seventeenth-century prototype. The bases are boldly engraved with numbers from 1 to 32 on the underside. It has been thought that the set represents the battle of Panormus (present-day Palermo), fought in 250 B.C. between the Romans under Metellus and the Carthiginians under Hasdrubal, but this is hypothetical. The subject of Romans and Barbarians was a popular one in all forms of art.

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