Pair of wall lights

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The stamped inventory numbers indicate that this pair of wall lights belonged to one of the Bourbon collections in Parma in the mid-eighteenth century, but their exact provenance has not yet been determined. Each has two flowers of soft-paste porcelain; the remaining flowers, many of which appear to be later replacements, are of hard-paste porcelain. Gilt-bronze wall lights with porcelain flowers were popular in France in the mid-eighteenth century, but the inventory numbers, as well as the broad chasing on the bowknot and long pendent tasseled ribbons, suggest an Italian origin for this pair. [Bill Rieder, 1984]

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