Jugate busts of Czarevitch Paul and Maria Feodorovna of Russia

James Tassie

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Catherine the Great’s daughter-in-law Maria Feodorovna, born Princess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, was an accomplished cameo carver. James Tassie produced several glass replicas of the cameo she made of herself alongside her ill-favored spouse, the future Paul I. Most of the replicas, like the original hardstone in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, are dated April 21, Catherine the Great’s name day; the original was presumably Maria Feodorovna’s tribute when that occasion was celebrated in 1791. The Russian court had known contacts with Tassie, whose small glass portraits emulating cameos enjoyed wide circulation, and there can be little doubt that it was to him they turned for replications of Maria Feodorovna’s cameo.

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