Interior scene

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In an intriguing conceit, a portrait, as if painted on a framed panel, is displayed within this woven scene, actually represented in the silks and woolen threads of tapestry. Despite its considerable size, this is a fragment cut from an even larger narrative tapestry of monumental scale. As such, the subject matter remains frustratingly opaque. Given the rich interior and courtly, contemporary fashions worn by the protagonists, past scholars have been tempted to identify this as a record of an actual historical event. It has been suggested, for example, as recording Margaret of Austria showing a portrait of her fiancé, Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, to her father, Emperor Maximilian I, before their 1501 marriage. Given the sixteenth-century convention to portray the protagonists of ancient, classical and Biblical histories- all popular in tapestry- in embellished versions of contemporary dress, however, this could more likely be a scene from such a fictive, and as yet unidentified, history.

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