Cupboard

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Large, imposing, and expensive, cupboards such as this one were placed in the parlor or hall of a prosperous home and used to store textiles, vessels, and utensils used at mealtime. The serrated moldings and distinctive turnings are characteristic of case furniture linked through family histories to Plymouth County. The applied ornament enhances the overall decorative scheme, with its numerous small, visually separate units of geometric decoration playing off one another to striking effect.

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