Whale-oil lamp

Thomas Cains

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This lamp’s decorative “mercurial ring” was created by tooling a deep indentation in the still-molten surface and then smoothing the glass over the groove. When viewed from the outside, the ring of trapped air appears silver.

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