
Writing box
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The lid of this writing box is decorated with a classical landscape. Although the source of the scene is unknown, such designs were often based on compositions by fashionable French or Italian painters. The inside is fitted with a rectangular compartment for pens, a glass inkwell, and a pounce pot.
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.