Writing box

Writing box

Ferdinand Plitzner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries luxurious boxes, similar to this one, that held writing and sealing implements had an obligatory place in the ceremonial setting of every Central European court. The elaborate decoration and preciousness of the materials reflected the owner's aristocratic status. Although frequently mentioned in contemporary inventories, such stately boxes have rarely survived the changing writing habits of later generations. This refined box shows a hitherto-unidentified monogram, incorporating the letters LG beneath a count's coronet; it is the only box of this type currently known of German origin. Plitzner was the most important German cabinetmaker of the early eighteenth century. His works reveal perfect mastery of contemporary French design and cabinetmaking especially evident in the box's complicated marquetry, which is influencedb y Louis XIV's great furniture designer, Andre-Charles Boulle (1642–1732). Among Plitzner's main noble patrons were several members of the Schonborn dynasty, for whom he created ceremonial furniture and one of the most important monuments of the late Baroque period in Germany: the intarsia panels for the mirrored room at Pommersfelden Castle in Franconia.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.