Dog kennel

Claude I Sené

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude I Sené’s talents as a chair maker were not limited to seat furniture for humans (see also Gallery 541). Among one of the most charming pieces in the Wrightsman collection is this niche de chien created for Marie-Antoinette. Considered a part of domestic furnishings, dog kennels were typically comprised of a small case or basket open on one or two sides to allow the dog to enter. More elaborate models resembled diminutive canopied beds or tabouret-shaped chairs with a recessed niche below. The Wrightsman’s example is constructed from gilded beech and pine and covered with luxurious velvet. The interior is lined in a striped blue and beige silk. The usage of acanthus leaves and Greek keys throughout comprise popular Neoclassical motifs fashionable in France at the end of the eighteenth century. Marie-Antoinette, like Madame de Pompadour before her, was a lover of canines. Her pets seemed to return the affection: tradition has it that her beloved dog Coco followed her mistress to her imprisonment at the Temple during the French Revolution. References: Nicole de Reyniès, Mobilier domestique: Vocabulaire typologique. Paris: Centre des monuments nationaux, Éditions du patrimonie, 2003, vol. 2, 944–5.

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