Basin

Barthélemy Samson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This silver basin and its accompanying ewer (22.32.2) were made in Toulouse in 1771 and may have been part of a dressing table set or were independent pieces. Used for the daily grooming in the bedroom, the silver toilet set evolved into one of the most fashionable luxury accessories and was an eloquent symbol of the owner’s social status. These pieces demonstrate the especially adept and exuberant interpretation of Rococo ornament by the silversmiths of Toulouse, a center of goldsmithing in eighteenth-century France. The maker was Barthélemy Samson, one of the most prominent and successful craftsmen of the city. Parisian gold and silversmiths were by this time already experimenting with the classical vocabulary. By the 1770’s, ewer and basins sets were generally made of porcelain or other ceramic materials. This ewer and basin demonstrate that sets in silver were still being produced often for wedding presents, and that luxury objects such as this ewer and basin were not exclusively made in Paris but also in provincial towns.

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