Victory Alighting on Earth

Gilles-Lambert Godecharle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Paris-trained Godecharle became the most important Neoclassical sculptor of Belgium. This enchanting statuette served as the model for a relatively stolid marble statue that stands in a niche in the royal palace of Laeken. Ordered at a time when the emperor Napoleon I included Laeken among his possessions, the figure is to be understood in the self-congratulatory context of French victories, interpreted as bringing peace to the world, or at least that part of the world upon which this winged Victory alights—the orb is inscribed with the names of countries of the Mediterranean, including Portugal and Spain, where Napoleon's vast designs by this time had in fact been stymied. Our terracotta girl formerly grasped an olive branch of peace along with the drapery in her lowered hand, while the upraised hand once brandished a trumpet.

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