Cameo with the Head of a Satyr

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The tradition of representing satyrs on intaglios and cameos is an ancient one, stretching back at least as far as sixth-century Greece. This cameo, with its forced perspective and strong, unidealized image, belongs to a rather late stage in the evolution of the representation of the sylvan deity. It was probably made in Italy, the chief center of cameo production in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, as it is today. [Clare Vincent, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1984, p. 189, no. 108]

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