Piece

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The coat-of-arms of the Galilei family of Florence is represented by the small ladder with three rungs under the cross in the center of the velvet. Along the bottom is part of a scroll that, if complete, appears to have read "Benedetto Ghalilei." This velvet, with its particularly lavish use of gold metal thread and the incorporation of the cross, may have been used in a set of ecclesiastical vestments for a family chapel.

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