Wave bowl

Christopher Dresser

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This bowl, covered in a turquoise-green glaze with a yellow and green striped interior, is molded to suggest a cresting wave. Further molded with gadrooning and a band of small circles, the bowl reflects various sources upon which Christopher Dresser relied. Japanese prints strongly influenced European decorative arts in the second half of the nineteenth century. The powerful curve of Katsushika Hokusai's famous woodblock print The Great Wave at Kanagawa, which was known in the West, is echoed in the shape of this bowl. This bowl was made by the Linthorpe firm following Dresser's trip to Japan in 1876/77. While not copying Japanese prototypes, Dresser, unlike his contemporaries, abstracted key design elements that suggest Japanese aesthetics.

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