Fragment of damask with marriage emblems

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This splendid piece of silk damask features a pattern of ovoid forms framed by a garland of leaves, with the repeat separated into fields including a large diamond ring emerging from a crown from which hang three pears. This pattern, or ones quite similar, range in date from 1516 to well into the seventeenth century; its popularity raises the interesting question of the heraldry's identification. It is often thought to have been designed for the Medici—the diamond ring being one of their symbols—or another family whose name played on the word pera, or pear, such as the Peruzzi or the Peri. However, its widespread use suggests the motif of the ring must have made it appropriate for many families, maybe within the context of a wedding.

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