Dish with angel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Small religious pictures were considered an essential component of the Renaissance domestic interior, as they provided opportunities for private worship. This display dish converts a large public image—the angel is borrowed from a famous fresco painting in Perugia—into one designed for quiet reflection in the home. The addition of a book underscores the purpose of this image as a model for the viewer, who might imitate the pious angel by studying a devotional text.

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