Hanging Key Cabinet

Kimbel and Cabus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Modern Gothic key cabinet has been attributed to the firm of Kimbel and Cabus on the basis of an illustration of the company's showroom published in the February 1877 issue of the "American Architect and Building News," which shows a cabinet such as this hanging on the back wall. With its florid oak carving and details reminiscent of medieval architecture, the cabinet, which has hooks for twenty keys, is an unusual example of the firm's Modern Gothic furniture designs. Anthony Kimbel (d. 1895) and Joseph Cabus became partners by 1863 and were one of the few firms to show Modern Gothic furniture at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876.

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