Panel

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thin silks painted with flowers, birds, and butterflies for dress lengths, fan leaves, and screen panels were the final phase of China’s ancient silk trade with the West. The soft ecru ground of this unusual example, suggesting some special kind of unbleached silk, enhances the pearly quality of the white lotus and clematis petals.

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