Feeding bowl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This shell-shaped vessel—known as a feeding bowl—was used to serve strong broth or other liquid nourishment to the sick through a pierced well. The absence of marks suggests that the unknown goldsmith, who merged superior craftmanship with inventive design to create this piece, was guild-exempt while working as a court goldsmith. On the cover plate is an armorial roundel with a Latin inscription encircling the ibex (goat) crest of Count Michael Teleki de Szék (b. 1634), a wealthy statesman, military commander, and landlord. The engraved date 1690 is the year of the count’s death. He likely used the bowl himself during his final illness. A similar coat of arms of a rampant goat as a hexagonal dish in the Hungarian National Museum.

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