Snuffbox

Vienna

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The complex decorative schemes on this box, including four hands of playing cards on the lid, a game of chess in progress on the underside, and three enigmatic inscriptions, suggest that it was commissioned as an intimate gift and expresses a coded message that cannot be easily deciphered today.

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