Embroidered sampler

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Samplers from Friesland, in the northwest of the Netherlands, are characterized chiefly by many alphabets and a tree of life motif. This sampler also features a central octagonal motif typical of those worked on pillows. The work also includes checkerboards, crowned and pierced hearts, and bride and groom flanking a tree of life motifs typical of samplers from the Netherlands. The letters RHD and the year 1674 are stitched onto the linen, most likely the initials of the maker and the year in which she completed her work.

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