Footed beaker

Johannes (Hans) Retsch , Sr.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Telling stories populated with mythological creatures—like those engraved on the base of this beaker—was a favorite pastime at social gatherings. Parts of Transylvania, the home of Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler (1431–1476/77), the inspiration for Bram Stocker’s Count Dracula, were allegedly inhabited by dragons and other highly dangerous creatures, among them wyverns and liver-eating eagles thought to hide and hunt among the precipices of the Balkan and Carpathian mountains. Literature Tihamér Gyárfás. A brassai ötvösség története. Brassó, 1912, p. 103, no. 149. Important English and Continental Silver and Objects of Vertu. Sale cat., Christie’s, London, October 22, 1986, p. 29, no. 104. Judit H. Kolba. Hungarian Silver: The Nicolas M. Salgo Collection. London, 1996, p. 41, no. 19. References Elemér Kőszeghy. Magyarországi ötvösjegyek a középkortól 1867-ig / Merkzeichen der Goldschmiede Ungarns vom Mittelalter bis 1867. Budapest, 1936, no. 192 [maker’s mark]. [Wolfram Koeppe 2015]

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