Kast

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A kast is a distinctive type of cupboard that was made in the New York—New Jersey area settled by the Dutch. Strongly architectural in design, the kast derived from Dutch prototypes and was made in America until the early 1800s. The most important piece of furniture in the home, it was probably often a dowry gift. The striking painted surface on this kast simulates stone and is highly unusual. Certain features of the construction and design details reflect, as does the form of the kast itself, Continental rather than English influences. This kast, one of a small number in the seventeenth-century style to have survived, is a rare example of joined oak furniture from the New York area.

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