Vase with cover

Saint-Cloud factory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This small globular vase is the surviving bottom half of what was known as a double gourd vase. It dates from the earliest years of the Saint-Cloud manufactory, the first in France to produce artificial or soft-paste porcelain commercially. The decoration in cobalt blue reflects the influence of imported Chinese porcelains, but the designs of arabesques and fantastic creatures is French in origin.

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