Cup and saucer

Meissen Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Meissen factory, established outside Dresden in 1710, was the first in Europe to discover the formula for hard-paste porcelain. This coffee cup with saucer is one of the earliest manufactured at Meissen. It is decorated with a metallic luster glaze in the interior of both the cup and the saucer. The gold content of this glaze, which produced the pearly iridescence, made it an expensive type of decoration, underscoring the high status of coffee drinking.

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