Plate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This plate is made of Rouen ware, a distinctive type of faience, or tin-enameled earthenware, produced in the Norman city of Rouen from the fifteenth century through the eighteenth. The elaborate border of floral scrolls on this example surrounds four staves of music simply titled "Aria." Although the opera for which the piece was composed has not been identified, its lyric is suited to the pastoral comic genre that was popular in France in the early eighteenth century. It translates as follows: "Though the world be at war, my soul is still at peace, and in my cave I defy fortune and all her traits."

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