Philip, Count Palatine

Hans Daucher

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In addition to commemorating their patrons, some sixteenth-century artists nurtured their own fame, which in turn added prestige to their collectors’ holdings. Daucher, for example, signed many of his works; here, a monogram acknowledges his design. Though celebrated in his lifetime, Daucher enjoys hardly a fraction of the fame of his contemporary Albrecht Dürer. The latter artist’s prints traveled and, made in multiples, endured; Daucher’s more expensive media—mostly bronze and limestone—and limited, if often elite, clientele tended to prevent his work from circulating far beyond the place and time for which it was made.

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