Triumfa España en las Americas (The Triumph of Spain in the Americas)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this Spanish printed cotton, "America" is a Native American female supported on a litter by two young men in a stylized tropical environment. In the sixteenth century, Europeans began personifying the Americas as an exotic native woman. The phrase Triumfa España en las Americas suggests that the designer was attempting to reassure viewers of Spain’s dominance in its American colonies. At the time it was produced, about the end of the eighteenth century, such encouragement would have been justified. For most of the century, Spanish governance in the Americas was destabilized by intense civil conflicts and violent uprisings by people from all spheres of colonial society.

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