Traveling set with glass beaker in case

Samuel Bardet

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Some members of Central and Southeastern European sovereign dynasties never traveled without their cutlery set. This seemed a strange habit to French courtiers, who, during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, shared their knives at table. However, in a time when a little deadly arsenic would go a long way if mixed with one’s salt or spices, the Hungarian aristocracy had reason for their precaution; poisonings, especially by arsenic mixed with salt or spices, were not uncommon.

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