Pair of elephant-head vases (vases à tête d'éléphant)

Sèvres Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Relatively few elephant head vases were produced at Sèvres, perhaps due to the sculptural complexity of the model and thus the cost in making it. Of the twenty-one examples known to have survived, this Museum is fortunate in possessing six (see also 1976.155.61; 58.75.90a, b; 58.75.91a, b; and 1983.185.9).

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