Plate with Water Bird

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ceramic artists working in Seville in the late 1400s and early 1500s revived the laborious process of cuerda seca, which had been common in Spain centuries earlier. In this technique, outlines of a design are painted onto the clay using a mixture of manganese and oil. The painted lines dry into a resist barrier that keeps differently colored glazes apart. Objects made via cuerda seca were often expensive export items shipped to Africa, northern Europe, and the Americas.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art