Eight-light chandelier

André Charles Boulle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richly ornamented with satyr masks and female busts, this type of early eighteenth-century chandelier has often been associated with the work of André-Charles Boulle. Granted the title of cabinetmaker and sculptor to Louis XIV in 1672, Boulle not only produced case furniture decorated with tortoiseshell and brass, examples of which are shown in this gallery, but also worked in gilt bronze. Several designs for chandeliers by Boulle are known but none corresponds exactly to this model.

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