Objet d'art

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, describes their accumulated artworks as a: "collection of objets d’art [which] comprises over 800 objects.

The artwork collection also includes metal curtain ties, a lacquered papier-maché tray, tobacco boxes, cigarette cases, découpage (cut-paper items), portrait miniatures, a gilt-brass clock finial, plaques, statuettes, plaquettes, a horse brass, a metal pipe tamper, a small glass painting, et cetera.

As works of art, objets de vertu reflect the rarified aesthetic and conspicuous consumption characteristic of an aristocratic court—of the late-medieval Burgundian dukes, the Mughal emperors, or Ming China—such as the Lycurgus Cup, which is a cage cup made of Roman glass; the Byzantine agate "Rubens vase"; the Roman glass "Portland Vase", and onyx and chalcedony cameo carvings, whilst the pre–World War I production of objets d'art featured Fabergé eggs made of precious metals and decorated with gemstones.

A comparable term that appears in 18th- and 19th-century French sale catalogs,[3] though now less used, is objets de curiosité, "objects of curiosity",[4] now devolved into the less-valued curio.

Elaborate late Renaissance display pieces in silver that incorporate organic elements such as ostrich eggs, nuts of the coco de mer and sea-shells are grouped in a volume, published in 1991, as "The Curiousities" in the catalogues of the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum.