Two-handled beaker and saucer

Meissen Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Two-handled beakers accompanied by saucers were usually used for drinking chocolate. This example was made at the Meissen factory, the first to produce hard-paste porcelain in Europe. The beaker and saucer were decorated in Augsburg, probably in the workshop of a family named Seuter. Independent porcelain painters, known as Hausmalers, often purchased undecorated Meissen porcelain and painted their own, sometimes quite distinctive, compositions and designs.

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