Pharmacy jar (albarello)

Masséot Abaquesne

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Featuring tulips and a grotesque head in profile, this jar was designed to store herbs, powders, and other dry medicines that would have been protected from spoilage by a piece of parchment secured around the opening. The container was probably part of an order for 4,152 vessels placed by an apothecary in 1545 with Masséot Abaquesne, who ran a large workshop with his son, Laurent.

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