Children with shellfish and vegetables

Robert Joseph Auguste

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of a pair with 1993.334.1, Children with Dead Game. The groups are models for the covers of silver tureens made by Auguste in 1756–57, acquired in 1769 by Christian VI of Denmark and remaining today in the Danish Royal Collection. This group was intended for a round tureen, a pot à oille. Auguste, who received his mastership as a Parisian silversmith in 1757 and became one of the principal silversmiths to the French court, is seen here in the roles of sculptor as well as silversmith. These detailed, deftly modeled terracottas offer rare insights into the working process of eighteenth-century silversmiths; although drawings often survive, their preliminary sketch-models tend not to.

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