Tilt-top table

David Roentgen

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The circular top of this small table, or gueridon, has a pierced wood gallery with brass banding. It is supported by a fluted block above a pillar in the form of a stylized Ionic column with brass moldings. The top can be both turned horizontally and tipped up, and gilt-brass casters under the feet make the whole piece easy to move. The gallery is not only decorative, but it would also have prevented objects from sliding off the edge. The revolving top made it possible for a host to serve tea to a small company of guests in privacy, without the presence of servants. All the elements of this table, but especially the pierced gallery, which is not executed in gilded metal in the French manner but skillfully crafted from wood, distinguish it from every other contemporary table invention.

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