Pendant in the form of a mermaid

Reinhold Vasters

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A number of details of the design of this jewel—including the long, attenuated fish tail, the wispy, featherlike skirt, the stole draped from the shoulders, and the hair styled in a low chignon worn with a tiara—are present in two unpublished designs for a mermaid jewel by the Aachen goldsmith Reinhold Vasters that are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The techniques employed in finishing the enameled gold tail indicate that the goldsmith who executed the jewel misunderstood certain Renaissance practices in preparing gold to receive enamel and in smoothing and polishing the surface once the enamel has been fired, misunderstandings that may have arisen, at least in part, from looking at worn or damaged sixteenth-century jewels.

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