Candlestick

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A typical household in seventeenth-century New England owned several metal or ceramic candlesticks. Wax candles were an expensive rarity—most colonists made their own candles from tallow (animal fat).

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