They produced sumptuous objects that employed the skills of several masters in the separate guilds of cabinetmaking, bronze casting and porcelain manufacturing.
One particularly sumptuous object is a circa 1725 German nautilus cup surmounted by a ferocious silver-gilt dragon with ruby eyes that is estimated at $100,000 to $150,000.
While illustrating, and celebrating major articles of faith, these often sumptuous objects also reflect the contexts that produced them.
The latter style was used for the Adams Vase, the most sumptuous object in the museum's show, a work hammered from a single sheet of gold.
Though lacking the kind of sumptuous objects you would find in an exhibition devoted to gold or silver, this exhibition tells a fascinating story.
In his interiors, Mr. White was one of the first architects to define a bold eclectic style, furnishing his baronially proportioned rooms with sumptuous eccentric objects that he imported from Europe.
His earliest known work was a Vanitas which fit the monochromatic and skillful texturing of his later pieces, but portrayed a subject matter distinct from the depictions of more sumptuous objects in his later years.
Nobody really knows for sure, but the mystery only adds to the allure of these sumptuous objects.
They are sumptuous objects, but the replication and the gridded arrangement is an overused Minimalist routine, while the use of the coroner's slab seems less profound than portentous and gimmicky.