Oval box (one of a pair)

Johann Martin Satzger I

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Beginning in the seventeenth century, Augsburg was one of Europe’s main producers of silver wares. In the second half of the eighteenth century, when these boxes were made, its main competitors were London and Paris. A royal or aristocratic client who wanted to purchase a toilet service for a wedding gift might solicit proposals from goldsmiths in all three cities, as, for example, an agent for Augustus III did in Dresden in 1747. Johann Martin Satzger I was the preeminent maker of dressing-table sets in Augsburg; many of the leading aristocratic families in Germany commissioned a toilet service from him.

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