The 50,000 objects in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts constitute a comprehensive and important historical collection, one of the Metropolitan Museum's largest, reflecting the development of a number of art forms in the major Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The department's holdings cover the following areas: 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 collected by the department.

Distinguished works of Italian Renaissance and eighteenth-century French sculpture abound in a series of gallery spaces, ranging from the soaring and sunlit Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court to beautifully appointed period rooms. Among the department's best-known masterpieces in marble are Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Bacchanal and Houdon's portrait of his infant daughter, Sabine. From the nineteenth century there is an extensive collection of sculptures by Rodin and Degas. Displays of furniture and smaller objects provide a lavish and comprehensive survey of styles in the decorative arts, documenting the achievements of master craftsmen across Europe in this era.

See the Collection Database to view highlights from the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.

More about the Department and Its Collection

The Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts has evolved significantly since it was established in 1907, during the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan, as a repository of decorative art, undifferentiated as to time or geography. At that point, thirty-five years of acquiring in the field had already produced a fine collection. A similarly ecumenical Department of Sculpture had been established even earlier. As the pace of acquisition accelerated and the holdings multiplied over the decades, there were several departmental partitions and consolidations involving these objects. The department's present scope was established in 1935, and in 1978 it assumed its current title.

Major areas of the department's collection include Italian and French sculpture in marble, bronze, and terracotta; French and English furniture and silver; Italian bronzes, goldsmithwork, maiolica, and glass; French and German porcelain; and a comprehensive collection of European textiles, including Flemish and French tapestries (see Antonio Ratti Textile Center). Architectural settings and period rooms range from a sixteenth-century patio from the castle of Vélez Blanco, Spain; to the Wrightsman Galleries, which display splendid examples of French furniture and several salons from grand eighteenth-century French houses; to the early Renaissance studiolo, or small, private study, from the palace of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, in Gubbio, Italy (installed at the Metropolitan in 1996 after ten years of intensive conservation). Five galleries are devoted to the eighteenth-century decorative arts of Central Europe, and the Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries feature nearly eight hundred examples of English furniture and decorative arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a suite of ten galleries and period rooms. Among these is Robert Adam's Tapestry Room from Croome Court, near Worcester, England.

Designed as a classical French garden and opened in 1990, the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court serves as a framework for the presentation of large Italian and French sculptures, originally intended for the outdoors, dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The arcaded south wall of the court was inspired by the Orangerie of Versailles, and the north wall incorporates the Museum's 1888 Italianate facade and carriage entrance of granite and red brick. Beyond the Petrie Court, a series of galleries in the Henry R. Kravis Wing offer visitors an overview of the progression of artistic styles from the Renaissance through the early twentieth century. In the four Florence Gould Galleries, tapestries, decorative arts, and furniture from various countries are presented in telling juxtapositions, starting with the flourishing of the late Baroque style around 1700 and finishing with the spreading of the arts of the French Empire about 1800.

Further on, three large galleries named for Iris and B. Gerald Cantor are devoted to a display of nineteenth-century sculpture and decorative arts, regardless of nationalities. Spanning the period from the Restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1815 to the flowering of Art Nouveau at the turn of the century, many of these works were acquired in an effort to enlarge the spectrum of the department's holdings and illustrate the multiplicity of styles that characterized nineteenth-century Europe.

In addition to the wonderfully variegated permanent installations described above—in which visitors are transported, in their imaginations, into spaces and settings from many different points in history—the department also organizes special exhibitions based on its own collection and other public and private collections around the world.