Strapwork with Flowers and Jewels

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This furnishing textile encapsulates the boundless curiosity and confidence of late nineteenth-century France. Emulating Renaissance silks in its juxtaposition of gold and crimson, the anchoring strapwork patterning harkens to historic European woodwork, prints, and textiles, but speaks equally to traditional Near Eastern motifs. The textile’s naturalistically rendered foliage and flowers, tamed into a gentle symmetry, display a level of detailing achievable only thanks to the latest developments in machine weaving and with th intense palette of modern synthetic dyes, bringing this piece firmly into the nineteenth century.

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