Cabinet with gold mounts and relief

Reinhold Vasters

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Long considered to be a masterpiece of the late sixteenth century, this cabinet was identified recently as the work of the great nineteenth-century goldsmith Reinhold Vasters, who reused old timber to buidt part of the carcase. It is possible that the central figure represents Hercules. The gold mounts, rendered in a Renaissance style typical of Vasters, depict additional mythological figures.

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