Jewel cabinet with watch

James Cox

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This cabinet bears the signature of the London jeweler and entrepreneur James Cox. On its doors are enameled personifications of Winter and Summer after compositions of the Four Seasons by the British painter Robert Pyle (act. 1761–66). Additional scenes are based on engravings after François Boucher (1703–1770) and Jean-Antoine Watteau (1670–1733). With characteristic inventiveness, Cox included a hidden drawer above the more obvious drawers inside; a jeweled button on the back of the cabinet opens the secret drawer.

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