Chessmen (32)

E. G. Zimmerman Company, Hanau

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Crusaders are the pewtered side. Their king has a cross on his tunic and is in medieval armor; the bishops and pawns are in helmets of early seventeenth-century style. The Muslims are the gilded side; their pedestals are slightly different from those of the other side. The E. G. Zimmerman Company of Hanau, who probably made the set, was one of the firms specializing in small cast-iron productions such as chess sets. On the underside of each piece is scratched the word "Germany," in accordance with the McKinley Tariff Act of 1897, which would indicate that the set was imported to America after that date.

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