Ewer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The designer of this ewer has borrowed an elegant Islamic form from fourteenth-century works of glass and metalwork produced in Egypt and Syria. The patterning is Italian, an elegant filigree technique known as latticino, achieved by blowing the vessel with clear and white glass canes. The ewer was, however, likely made in Northern Europe or France in imitation of Italian glass, a pervasive type called façon de Venise, or “in Venetian style.”

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