Embroidered sampler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This sampler features an upper and lower case alphabet, flowers (pansies, roses, lilies, and tulips), potted fruit trees and buttonhole-stitched edges. The motifs border all four sides and point toward the middle of the work, in which is stitched a floral wreath, typical of German samplers through the nineteenth century. The date on the sampler, 1691, is presumably the year in which the work was completed. It is stitched in such a way that it reads "1691" both upside down and right-side up. The sampler has the square shape, buttonhole stitched edges, and center-facing flower sprig and vase motifs typical of seventeenth-century samplers from Nuremberg, Germany.

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