Cap crown

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Laces produced in Alençon and Argentan, where the French lacemaking industry was established in the seventeenth century, evolved in tandem with changing fashions. For a brief period in the first half of the eighteenth century, these laces, called Argentella, were produced with a background, or mesh, of solid hexagons enclosed within hexagonal outlines. They were intended to mirror the patterns of contemporary dress silks. Both silks and laces of the period often employed motifs of exotic foliage, such as the palm trees in this cap crown.

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