Teapot

Lille Mint

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tea never attained the popularity of chocolate or coffee in France, and relatively few eighteenth-century French silver teapots survive. Most of those that do are northern French. This example, made near the Flemish border, reflects the lingering popularity there of interlaced scrollwork and foliate decoration. These motifs were no longer fashionable in Paris after the 1730s, with the emergence of the Rococo style, which makes a tentative appearance here in the spiral fluting of the base and lid and in the undulating engraved border.

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