Pair of gloves

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1629, a Venetian ambassador sent a shopping list to his colleague who was stationed in England, requesting "three dozen of their white summer gloves, without any embroidery, as plain as possible, but cut and pointed, and above all let them be white and thin." These gloves, though white, relatively plain, and perforated at the palms—presumably for summer months—would not have pleased the ambassador with their still-lush details in silk on satin. Silver stems, dazzling with spangles, connect needlepoint leaves that have been individually outlined in pink. Yet they, like the above request, reveal how gloves—however luxurious—were purchased and owned in multiples, swapped in and out according to season, taste, and occasion. -Sarah Bochicchio, 2020

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