Plate with the Arms of Blanche of Navarre

Plate with the Arms of Blanche of Navarre

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The prolific workshops of Manises, near the city of Valencia, made colorfully decorated tin-glazed earthenware vessels in many shapes. Such wares were widely appreciated across Europe, but Italians appear to have been the biggest customers for them. This plate, which bears the prominent arms of Queen Blanche of Navarre (1391–1441) and her husband, John II of Aragon, was probably part of a larger service. In a letter of 1454, for example, Maria of Castile, consort of Alfonso V of Aragon, ordered just such a service, including dishes for meat, washing basins, porringers, broth bowls, pitchers, vases, and other objects to be "lustered inside and out." During the fifteenth century, Italian maiolica workshops gradually began to surpass Spanish ones in terms of quality and sheer numbers.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate with the Arms of Blanche of NavarrePlate with the Arms of Blanche of NavarrePlate with the Arms of Blanche of NavarrePlate with the Arms of Blanche of NavarrePlate with the Arms of Blanche of Navarre

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.