Small writing table

Small writing table

Antoine-Mathieu Criaerd

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Small convenient tables provided with a writing slide and a drawer for writing implements were found in nearly every room of the mid eighteenth-century home. This elegant piece by Criaerd is entirely framed by gilt-bronze moldings and has kept its gilt-bronze receptacles for ink and sand needed for letter writing. Books or papers could be placed on the shelf underneath as can be seen on a related table in the well-known portrait of Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher of 1756 (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich).

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.