Sugar tongs (part of a set)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the first half of the eighteenth century, tea was a luxury item, an expensive imported commodity. Although most vessels made for the tea service—usually of silver or porcelain—were also expensive, this set of gold implements must have seemed impossibly lavish. The pierced spoon was used to skim stray tea leaves from the cup.

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