Music

Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chapu was a Second Empire sculptor with rare lyric gifts. His young winged genius bows the violin before a cityscape that represents Thebes, whose walls were said to have been raised to the strains of Amphion's lyre; he is the diminutive figure at right. The imagery thus unites the harmonies of music and architecture. This is the model for one of six silvered bronze reliefs; allegories of the arts, that were destined for the drawing room of Chapu's architect friend, Paul Sédille; his Paris house in the Boulevard Magenta was completed in 1870.

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