Sixteenth-century Europe saw, with the apogee of humanism, the reactivation of intellectual and creative energies towards classical antiquity, through which the decorative arts flourished. Designs were highly imaginative, with increasingly complicated, fantastical motifs, in which material opulence coexisted with humanist knowledge in the form of historical and mythological themes.[1] A case in point is this...

Hildreth Meière (1892-1961) was a distinguished Art Deco muralist, painter, mosaicist, and decorative artist often applauded for her defiance of normative standards against the professional success of females.  In 1936 she wrote, “It drives me wild to be spoken of as ‘one of the best women artists’. I’ve worked as an equal with men, and...

In 1946, Pablo Picasso attended the annual pottery exhibition in Vallauris in the South of France.  He was so impressed by the works he had seen that the artist met with the owners of Madoura, Suzanne and Georges Ramié, who offered him full access to their workshop in exchange for the rights to produce his...

Ever wonder what your jewelry does when you aren’t wearing it? This brooch by the British art jeweler and goldsmith Kevin Coates demonstrates Coates grappling with this question. When Coates creates a piece of jewelry he often also designs an elaborate and beautiful housing for it to live in when not being worn, allowing the...

In the eighteenth century, many Italian artists produced views of popular tourist destinations to sell as souvenirs to travelers on the Grand Tour. This drawing by an unknown artist shows the Grotta Grande in the Boboli Gardens of Florence. Visible within the grotto’s chambers are Paris and Helena, sculpted in 1560 by Vincenzo di Rafaello...

The subject of this fan is an episode from the Ancient Greek myth of the Trojan War. Agamemnon has vowed to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease Artemis, whose wrath he incurred by killing deer in a sacred grove. This fan illustrates the dramatic moment when the goddess takes pity on the girl and at...

Embroidered in Bengal, India for the Portuguese market, this colcha, or bedcover, is a result of the interchange of goods and cultural influence between two trade markets. The style and materials are typical of India, but the universal theme of good triumphing over evil is illustrated through a mix of local and European imagery. Eight...

This brisé fan (one consisting of rigid sticks joined with a ribbon) illustrates a story from ancient Greek mythology. Dionysus, the god of wine, finds Ariadne on the Island of Naxos. Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, has fled away with Theseus, slayer of the Minotaur, and been deserted by him on the...

This fan depicts a scene from Roman mythology in which Vertumnus, god of orchards, seduces the nymph Pomona, steward of fruit trees, by assuming the guise of an old woman. The story is best known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a collection of myths centered around the recurring themes of love and transformation. Such tales were apt...