Collar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Small-scale Venetian needle laces of the late seventeenth century, called point de neige, were well suited to fashions of the period, which required that lace be gatherable at the neck and sleeves. The name point de neige refers to the resemblance of the delicate buttonholed loops and projecting picots to snowflakes (neige being the French word for snow). The later nineteenth century witnessed an extensive industry in both the copying and remodeling of seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury laces. This piece reflects that trend, as it incorporates older elements into a nineteenth-century collar.

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