Ollio pot with cover and stand

Vienna

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The tripod was used in early dynastic China (2nd–1st millennium B.C.) for offerings of food. During the twelfth century the form was adapted for burning incense. The eighteenth-century Japanese export version was freely adapted at Delft, Meissen, and Vienna, where its original purpose was ignored. By eliminating the piercing in the cover and changing the proportions, the incense burner became a bowl for soup or stew, reverting to the tripod’s earliest function in China.

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