The Nurse

Guillaume Dupré

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The wet nurse holds in her lap a swaddled baby wearing a quilted head protector. The composition may conform to a pair of figures reportedly given in 1608 by Henri IV’s infant son, Nicolas Henri de France, duc d’Orléans (1607–1611), to his betrothed, Marie de Bourbon (1605–1627). Similar nurses with swaddled babies appear in paintings of bathing noblewomen by the court artist François Clouet (ca. 1516–1572) and his followers.

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