Crimson Silk Damask

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Beginning in the twelfth century, the Tuscan town of Lucca and the Adriatic port of Venice dominated European silk weaving, which subsequently spread to Genoa, Florence, and Milan. Spanish silk weavers, long established in Granada and Valencia, were, by the 1500s, emulating their Italian counterparts. Raw silk, imported from the Near East or cultivated locally, was spun, dyed, spooled, and woven within family workshops under the patronage of wealthy, sometimes noble, silk manufacturers. This crimson silk damask was displayed in Arms, Armor, and Textiles: 1492–1776, on view at the George Bruce branch, New York Public Library (visible at far right in the photograph of 1934), and later in European Textiles and Costume Figures, at Walton High School (visible at far right in the photograph of February 16, 1939). [Elizabeth Cleland, 2020]

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