Soup plate (part of a set of three)
Félix Bracquemond
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This service, designed by Félix Bracquemond for Eugène Rousseau in 1866, is decorated with asymmetrically placed outlined figures that demonstrate the strong influence of Japanese prints on the decorative arts. Bracquemond, an accomplished printmaker, painter, and designer, was one of the first Europeans to acquire a copy of Hokusai's Manga (1813), a thirteen-volume collection of sketches filled with drawings. By the 1860s, the Manga was known among European and American collectors and became a highly regarded source for Japanese decorative motifs. In the 1860s, Bracquemond entered the elite circle of the Parisian artistic and literary avant-garde, following his success as a printmaker at the Exposition Universelle in 1855. A self-taught printer credited with stimulating the etching revival in France, Bracquemond learned ceramic enamel decoration while working with Théodore Deck. He later became the director of Charles Haviland's Auteuil studio in Paris, from 1873 to 1880. While working for Haviland, Braquemond produced perhaps one of his most famous dinner services, the Service Parisien (1875), which also employed decorative elements suggested by Hokusai's Manga. Bracquemond designed not only ceramics, but also furniture, gold and silver jewelry, bookbindings, and tapestry. He is known to have worked with the sculptor Auguste Rodin as well as the poster designer Jules Chéret.
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.