Chalice

Otto Meier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This densely ornamented vessel with inset colored gemstones was made for the dean of Speyer Cathedral, Adolph Wolff von Metternich zur Gracht, to use in celebrating Mass. The radiant angels are enameled in the round (en ronde bosse), a French technique developed during the fourteenth century that uses molten-glass colors to paint over a sculpted gold core. The chalice’s damaged bowl was carefully replaced with a new one in the nineteenth century.

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