Length of roller printed cotton

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Probably intended for use as a window shade, this furnishing fabric presents a Gothic Revival motif of stained-glass windows replete with tracery, Tudor rose, and Campbell coat-of-arms. Although extremely popular, such repeating architectural patterns were condemned by Augustus Welby Pugin, who noted that "a moment's reflection must show the extreme absurdity of repeating a perspective over a large surface with some hundred different points of sight: a panel or wall may be enriched and decorated at pleasure, but it should always be treated in a consistent manner."

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