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. Present in the 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. Styles adhered closely to overseas developments, though regional schools of cabinetmaking did emerge rather swiftly in Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Charleston. 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.