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The collection of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum extends from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century and includes approximately twelve thousand examples of furniture, silver, glass, pewter, ceramics, and textiles.

In May 2007, the Museum began a multiyear, comprehensive renovation of The American Wing in order to present the Museum's superlative collections in the clearest, most logical, and most beautiful manner possible. The completion of the second phase of the project (May 2009) comprised the reopening of The Charles Engelhard Court, a grand, light-filled pavilion that has long served as the formal entrance to the wing, as well as the Museum's twenty historic interiors, which have been reordered, renovated, and reinterpreted.

Present in the MET’s extensive collection are objects made on American soil from the early colonial period, reflecting the settlers' keen desire to reproduce as faithfully as possible the material world they had left behind in England, Holland, and other homelands. Over the next two centuries, assimilating trends and techniques from across the Atlantic was the major preoccupation of American designers and craftsmen. The department's holdings reflect this ongoing dialogue, as well as the many truly original voices in American decorative arts.

The Metropolitan's collection of American stained glass is perhaps the most comprehensive anywhere and features the innovative work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Also noteworthy is the rest of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century glass collection, including objects designed and produced by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company; early furniture up to about 1820; Baroque-style silver of about 1700; presentation and exposition silver objects of the later nineteenth century; and nineteenth-century ceramics.

Highlights of the department's silver collection include the work of Paul Revere and of Tiffany & Company. The extensive glass collection incorporates blown- and pressed-glass vessels, with superb works by the New England Glass Company, the Dorflinger Works, and Tiffany Studios. The ceramics holdings incorporate a wide variety of materials, techniques, and manufacturers, from Pennsylvania-German redware to Rookwood Pottery. The collection of textiles includes more than one hundred quilts, eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century needlework samplers, and fabrics designed by Candace Wheeler, America's most prominent female textile and interior designer of the nineteenth century.

Andree Caldwell, who has been lecturing at the Metropolitan for over 25 years, will once again lead our tour. She holds two masters degrees in Fine Arts.

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Location: Metropolitan Museum, 1000 Fifth Ave. (82nd Street), New York. Enter through the museum’s main entrance and check in at the Group Registration Desk located in the Great Hall.
Time: 1:45 Meet at Group Registration Desk in Main Hall; 2:00 Tour begins
Cost: $25/Members; $35/Nonmembers & Guests
Organizer: Elena Crespo ’93

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