Musicians and Dancers from a set of five Grotesques

Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dream-like, elegant, gamboling figures enjoy music and dance within a gloriously colorful, if improbable, fanciful architectural setting. This tapestry is from a set known as the Berain Grotesques, in reference to the pervasive stylistic influence of the artist Jean Berain (1640-1711), who may even have provided preliminary sketches. The Classical architecture, flora, fauna and figures against the blank ground was in emulation of the Roman wall-paintings excavated in the subterranean chambers of Nero's palace in Rome (erroneously called 'grotti', hence 'grotesques'.) These Berain Grotesques tapestries’ light-hearted subject matter and whimsical design contrast with the heavier, ornate style that had characterized French tapestry during the preceding third quarter of the seventeenth century. The series enjoyed immense popularity during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the Beauvais workshop produced many weavings for international clients.

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