Dish with a vase of flowers

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The extensive use of gilding and the dark blue and red enamels illustrate the Chinese adoption of the Japanese Imari style. This style became popular in Europe in the mid-seventeenth century, when warfare in China disrupted the kilns at Jingdezhen. Once work there resumed, Chinese potters incorporated the Imari style in their repertory in order to appeal to the lucrative European market.

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