Furnishing Textile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Italian weavers were admired the world over for their virtuosity. Here, in the technique called "firefly effect", tiny loops of golden thread stand proud of the crimson velvet's surface. Amongst the Italian weavers' international clientele were the Tudor kings of England. Henry VII and his successors loved enormous scale velvet wall-hangings, like this rare survival. Visiting ambassadors marveled at expanses of such pricey textile, woven in Tuscany and exported- at great expense- for royal use in London. Henry VII adopted the pattern's double-rose motif as his dynasty's badge: the Tudor rose. Portable and pliable, these hangings brought splendor to any space, as Henry VIII used to full advantage at the 1520 temporary meet with his French counterpart, François 1er- evocatively coined by contemporaries, "the Field of the Cloth of Gold".

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