Teapot

I. C.

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tea was still a relatively new beverage in France when this teapot was produced. As the leaves were not imported into France in significant quantities at the time, it was an expensive drink, available only to members of the upper strata of society, and the small size of this teapot reflects tea’s high cost. This example appears to be the only surviving Parisian teapot of the late seventeenth century. Tea never gained the popularity of either hot chocolate or coffee in France, and silver teapots do not seem to have been produced in large quantities even in the eighteenth century. In its design, the teapot corresponds closely to one in a drawing by the silversmith Nicolas-Ambroise Cousinet (active 1696–1715 ). An inscription indicates that the teapot in Cousinet’s drawing was made for Louis, duc d’Aumont (1667–1723 ), and it is known that the drawing was sent to the Swedish court in 1702. French silversmiths set the artistic standard for court silver throughout Europe, and the Swedes were particularly enamored of French fashions.

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