Dish

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese ceramics were traded on a vast scale across South and Southeast Asia as well as Korea and Japan. With the disruption of this trade and of the kiln production at Jingdezhen at the end of the Ming dynasty (ca. 1644), kilns in Japan took up the manufacture of popular blue-and-white designs to supply both domestic and export demands. The shape of this plate, its palette, and the division of patterns into a circular field and broad rim are of Chinese origin, yet the interpretation of motifs (clouds, pines, and pavilions) shows a Japanese approach to design, especially in the asymmetrical balance of forms.

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