Mounted dish with figures in a landscape from Burghley House, Lincolnshire

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese porcelains were a great rarity in sixteenth-century England, and they were often fitted with gilt-silver mounts that proclaimed their high status as luxury objects. Examples such as this were regarded as suitable for royal gifts or for the furnishing of aristocratic houses.

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