Bellarmine jug

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

German “bearded man” stoneware jugs are known to have been used in seventeenth-century America. Stoneware is fired at a higher temperature than earthenware, hot enough to make the clay vitrify or change into a glasslike substance, resulting in a nonporous ceramic body. Thus, stoneware jugs made ideal long-term storage containers.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art