Side chair (one of a pair)

Richard Roberts

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These chairs are part of a large set that included two settees and one winged easy chair, stools, and side chairs, supplied to Sir Robert Walpole, later first Earl of Orford (1676–1745), for Houghton Hall, Norfolk. The attribution to Richard Roberts is based on an account of a considerable debt owed by Walpole in 1729 to a "Thomas Roberts." Thomas Roberts, carver and joiner to the royal household, worked in London under the sign of The Royal Chair until his death in 1714. He was succeeded by Richard Roberts, presumably his son, who was active at the time that Walpole redecorated Houghton Hall.

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