Potpourri with cover

Niderviller

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Niderviller, an area in the Lorraine region of France, came into prominence as a producer of enamel-decorated faience in the mid-eighteenth century when Baron Jean-Louis de Beyerlé purchased a factory there. Under Beyerlé and the chemist-painter François-Antoine Anstett, the factory produced an innovative range of models and colors in petit feu faience, or tin-glazed earthenware that was fired twice. Such forms were undoubtedly influenced by the factory’s parallel forays into hard-paste porcelain production from 1760 to 1765. This potpourri with cover exemplifies the Rococo aesthetic that dominated the factory in the middle of the eighteenth century. The rose-hued imaginary landscape on the base is evocative of the designs of Jean Pillement, while the asymmetrical scrolls and openwork on the cover is reminiscent of the ornament designs of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier. In 1770, Beyerlé sold the factory to the Comte de Custine, who was guillotined during the French Revolution in 1793

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