Hinge

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The wrought iron produced for Dutch dwellings in upstate New York followed a utilitarian aesthetic. These door hinges feature a swelling, or nail pad, at the end closest to the doorjamb. The pads accommodated additional nails and thus strengthened the hinges’ attachment to the door. This design, based on hardware used throughout the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is characteristic of hinges produced in Dutch communities in the Hudson River valley.

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