Hot milk pot

Mathieu Bouvier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The type of silver jug, which often looks like a small coffeepot, was usually used in eighteenth-century France for serving mustard, which was often prepared in a semiliquid form. This example, however, must have been intended for hot milk. The lid's finial, which also serves as a thumbpiece for raising the lid, is in the form of a nightcap tassel, an allusion that would have been appropriate for hot milk, which was served with coffee in the morning.

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