Dish with a scene of tea cultivation (one of a pair)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of a pair of dishes belonged to a table service decorated with scenes of the cultivation of tea. This one depicts rattan being applied to the outside of a container, while on the right a man is packing tea by stomping it down. These cylindrical containers were used to transport the tea to Canton, where it was repacked in metal-lined wooden chests for shipment to Europe and elsewhere. Chinese potters' borrowing of French pottery motifs for the border design speaks to the stylistic cross-currents enabled by the extensive trade in the eighteenth century.

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