Beaker

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A wave pattern, suggestive of rippling water in a slight breeze or a lamb’s fleecy coat, covers the body of this beaker. This type of decoration is unique to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Hungarian and Transylvanian silver. It is a variation of the snakeskin pattern: both are designed to provide better grip. A closely-related beaker formerly in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent is numbered, as are other examples, which indicates it was part of a larger set. The present example was once in the Andrássy collection.

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