La marchande d'amours

Oberkampf Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The title of this piece, which translates as "The Merchant of Love" or "The Cupid Seller," is based on the scene in one of the octagonal cartouches showing a woman selling winged cupids from a cage. In 1816, Lebas was asked by Émile Oberkampf, son of the factory founder Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf, to produce several patterns for the firm. The Museum has two pieces resulting from that commission: "La Marchande d'Amours" and a pattern showing various historic sites in Paris. This exemplified a type of Neoclassical scenic textile popular during the first two decades of the nineteenth century in which a variety of motifs following a theme were isolated in decorative frames against a geometric patterned background. In contrast to eighteenth-century narrative designs, in which motifs float like islands on a white ground, these early nineteenth-century cottons form an overall decorative pattern unified by the geometric background.

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