Medal cabinet

William Vile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This medal cabinet, with 135 shallow drawers that can accommodate more than six thousand coins and medals, is one of two cabinets that probably formed the end sections of a larger piece of furniture, called His Majesty's Grand Medal Case. (Its mate is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.) The pair appears to have been commissioned by the future George III; the door of the top section is carved with the star of the Order of the Garter, to which the Prince of Wales had been elected in 1750. Originally the cabinets rested on open stands. William Vile made alterations to both cabinets, the most extensive of which was the filling in of the space between the legs.

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