Bowl with Bird

Bowl with Bird

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the late 1200s, Italian ceramic artists began experimenting with the tin-glazed technique, in which designs were painted on the opaque white surface of a pot. Such pots famously became known as maiolica. The earliest examples, such as this small pot, display a limited palette of copper green and manganese brown, used to create a simple, almost improvisatory decorative scheme.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.