Plate (one of a pair)

Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This beautifully drawn flower basket derives from an untraced engraving after Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636–1699)—one of his many variant compositions that were freely adapted to a wide range of media long after his death. The dish is one of two in the Metropolitan, and a third is in the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; originally there was probably a set of four or, at most, six. The placement of the basket on a gold ground may have originated with the Chinese painter but, alternatively, could have been inspired by Western familiarity with Yongzheng export porcelains richly patterned in gold, silver, and black. Little is known of the French family of Berwickshire whose arms appear on the reserve of this dish. The same armorial appears on the reverse of two plates in the British Museum, London.

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