Commode

Martin Criaerd

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The most prominent member of a large family of cabinetmakers, Mathieu Criaerd specialized in furniture veneered with Asian lacquer or European imitation lacquer and is known to have worked for the marchands merciers Thomas-Joachim Hébert and Nicolas Héricourt. Once thought to be veneered with Japanese lacquer, the surface of this commode was actually decorated in France in imitation of Japanese black and gold lacquer of about 1670–1680.

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