Twelve-light torchère (one of a pair)

Pierre Philippe Thomire

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This urn and its companion, 64.163.2, are copies of a marble vase, known as the Medici vase, which is thought to have been made during the second half of the first century A.D. The brilliant green mineral called malachite which forms the surface of these torchères was mined in Russia, probably in the region of the Ural mountains 1500 miles to the east of Moscow. Factories were set up near the mines, where Russian workmen cut the malachite fragments into thin sheets and applied them to shaped metal forms. During the nineteenth century, these forms were sent in considerable numbers to Paris where they were enhanced by gilt-bronze mounts from such firms as Thomire et Compagnie. The museum has a much larger malachite vase with gilt-bronze mounts also signed by Thomire and dated 1819 (44.152a, b).

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