Dressing table

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the 1730s, Boston cabinetmakers transformed the traditional flat-top, turned-leg William and Mary–style high chest into the scroll-top, cabriole-leg Queen Anne version. The best examples of this uniquely American design, such as this dressing table and its related high chest (10.125.62), have carved and gilded shells and delicate inlaid compass stars on the pediment and case sides.

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