Pietre dure (hardstone) landscape scene

Castrucci

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Formed using the color and texture of different semiprecious stones, this pietre dure landscape was likely once incorporated into a cabinet, perhaps one destined for the Kunstkammer of Emperor Rudolf II. Meticulously cut and fitted to create “paintings” in lasting stone, these works were central to demonstrating princely magnificence. An admirer of pietre dure, Rudolf II brought Cosimo Castrucci—a Florentine artist who worked with precious stones—and his family to Prague in 1592 to set up a workshop. There, they joined the many other artisans whom the emperor had gathered to make the city a center of artistic production.

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