Mosaic glass urn with silver leaf design

Mosaic glass urn with silver leaf design

Giuseppe Barovier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

When Jarves wrote about his collection of Venetian glass in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1881, he described this vessel as a “cinerary urn,” intended to hold the ashes of the dead. The splashy green flame and sparkly surface, created through the application of silver leaf, seem ill-suited to a funerary function.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mosaic glass urn with silver leaf designMosaic glass urn with silver leaf designMosaic glass urn with silver leaf designMosaic glass urn with silver leaf designMosaic glass urn with silver leaf design

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.