Box

Alphonse Giroux & Cie., Paris

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Displaying star-shaped parquetry and gilt-bronze mounts, this elegant coffer harks back to eighteenth-century traditions. The firm established by Alphonse Giroux (1775/76–1848)—a tabletier, or dealer in luxury goods—was known for its high-quality objects such as glove boxes, caskets for weddings and baptisms, gifts for the New Year, and small pieces of furniture in a variety of styles. In the tradition of eighteenth-century marchands merciers, Giroux and his sons probably did not make any of the offered wares themselves but commissioned them from a variety of artists.

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