Cabinet

Charles Tisch

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This cabinet was a gift of its maker, Charles Tisch, to the Metropolitan Museum in 1889. In his offer of the gift, he wrote, "This piece of Furniture received the first price [sic] at the New Orleans Exposition [18]84/85. It is a purely American production of my own manufacture and consider it worthy of a place in the Museum." While the cabinet may have been made on American soil, it borrowed design motifs from around the world. Tisch was a German immigrant cabinetmaker living in New York, and his cabinet incorporates Japanese fretwork, Eastlake-inspired spindles, Aesthetic Movement inlay patterns, and classical Ionic columns. The asymmetry of the design and the variously sized compartments recall imperial Chinese wall apparati for the display of ceramics.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art