Teapot

Saint-Cloud factory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The decoration of this teapot was left unfinished, perhaps due to the technical problems evident on the spout, and thus it serves as a wonderful document of the technique of enamel painting on porcelain in the 18th century. A piece of porcelain was fired in the kiln at least several times; the number of firings was determined by the numbers of colors employed and the temperatures at which these colors fused to the glaze. Both red and yellow enamel would have been added to this teapot, and the Japanese-influenced composition would have become legible once they had been fired. This extremely rare survival from the 18th century was given to the Metropolitan by the late Jean Le Corbeiller, whose late wife, Clare Le Corbeiller, was the curator of European porcelain at this institution for many decades.

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