Necklace

Eugêne Fontenay

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This gold chain has five oval enameled pendants depicting personifications of Europe and the Seasons. Each oval is framed in diamonds interspersed with long stylized palmette-shaped pendants, and forty-one leaf-shaped pendants, decorated with granulation and wirework suspended from alternately plain and coiled tubular links. The use of granulation and images of classical maidens, as well as the overall organization, demonstrate the designer's dependence upon ancient Greek gold jewelry for inspiration. Like the Castellani firm in Rome, Eugène Fontenay reproduced jewelry in ancient Greek, Roman, and other historical styles. However, not only did Fontenay copy period originals, he also took motifs from these styles and, with them, created original designs.

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