Lady at her Breakfast

Vienna

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chocolate was often consumed at breakfast, usually in the privacy of the bedroom or dressing room. Here, a servant is presenting the beverage to a woman in a dressing gown; there are also sweet Savoy biscuits on the table. Chocolate was considered healthy, particularly for the stomach and the voice, and its consumption was permitted even during the fasting days of Lent, provided it was served without milk or eggs.

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