Platter

Bernard Palissy

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The sixteenth century was marked by a scientific interest in natural phenomena. New worlds had been discovered, occupied by animals and human beings never before seen in Europe. Museums of curiosities abounded, and self-styled naturalists, such as Cosimo de' Medici, gilded armadillos from the Americas and placed them on pillars in their palaces. Native Indians of the Americas toured the courts of Europe, and the taste for the exotic flourished. It was in this atmosphere that the talented French potter Bernard Palissy began practicing his trade. An enthusiastic natural scientist, Palissy used local fish, plants and reptiles—he made casts of actual specimens for use in his modeling—fashioned in a range of colored glazes, to develop what he called "pastoral pottery." Although he is recorded as having produced his rustic ware in abundance, the only documented work by his hand was the grotto (now destroyed) in the garden of the Tuileries.

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