Daybed (lit de repos)

François-Honoré-Georges Jacob-Desmalter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sphinx-shaped arms suggest a date soon after Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign which is confirmed by the stamp of JACOB FRERES/R. MESLEE used by the Jacob firm only between 1795 and 1803. The daybed must have supported several Bonapartes, for it bears the inventory mark of the Château de Neuilly, where two of Napoleon’s sisters lived, first Caroline Murat and later Pauline Borghese, as well as marks for the Château de Trianon, the Palais des Tuileries, and the Château de Villeneuve l’Etang.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art