Cabinet

Herman Doomer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sophisticated ripple moldings on the cabinet’s exterior playfully bring out the lustrous quality of the severe black ebony. Other tropical veneers as well as inlays of mother-of-pearl and green-stained horn enliven the cabinet’s interior which encloses multiple drawers as well as a compartment with a mirror-lined "stage" for the display of a treasured artwork. This cabinet is attributed to Herman Doomer, one of the few cabinetmakers working with ebony and mother-of-pearl in Amsterdam, the foremost European market for such exotic materials. Doomer gained fame through the portrait Rembrandt painted of him, also in the Museum's collection (see 29.100.1).

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