Chessmen (32)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The king, queen, knight, and bishop are busts with almost no shoulders, fixed at the closed base of a circular gallery that extends halfway up their height. The gallery is finished with a row of upright leaves. The rook is a higher gallery narrowing toward the top, ending with a ring of four crenelations and topped by a small central knob. The pawns are half-figures, again with almost no shoulders, fixed to a baluster on a short stand. This type of chessman, with encircling galleries of vertical leaves, has been popular in Spain. The galleries in the simpler sets enclose symbols, miters and conventional substitutions for crowns, rather than busts.

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