Standing cup with cover (vase couty or coupe couty)

Sèvres Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the end of the nineteenth century, convinced that ornament should be appropriate to form and material, advocates of modernism criticized revivalist pottery as uninspired and pretentious. Imitation and love of display were cited as roadblocks to progress in the potter’s art. Made in a Renaissance-revival style, this cup was an official presentation piece for the winner of first prize at the Exposition Universelle of 1878. Of the disdained French national manufactory at Sèvres, one critic wrote, "The colors are insipid and often vulgar; the decoration rarely quits the beaten track of the usual Sèvres flower and figure subjects. Sèvres is lingering in the traditions of [the past]. It remains deaf to the fame of living and modern art."

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