Trencher with quotation from The Governance of Virtue (1566) (one of a set)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the end of a banquet it was customary to serve fruit or sweetmeats on the undecorated side of wood trenchers such as these. Afterwards, they were turned over and the moralizing quotations from the Bible read aloud to the assembled company. The gold effects were achieved with a yellow varnish over a layer of silver-leaf.

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