Chocolate pot

Esaias Busch III

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This gilt-silver chocolate pot reflects the high quality of goldsmith's work in Augsburg in the early eighteenth century. The engraved decoration is particularly fine, consisting of interlaced ornamental bands on a matte ground. On three of the lower cartouches, the scrollwork bands form a frame that encloses fanciful depictions of Far Eastern natives in exotic dress. This type of engraved decoration is typical of Augsburg silver at this time, as are the ribbed sides and the application of overall gilding to the silver surface.

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