Ice cream pail (one of a pair)

Meissen Manufactory

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Originally made to contain ice cream, these tall covered jars were produced at the Meissen factory in about 1730. Incised inventory marks indicate that they were originally part of the Saxon royal collections housed in the Japanese Palace in Dresden, where the enormous holdings of both Asian and Meissen porcelain owned by Augustus the Strong were displayed. Archival documents suggest that these jars were removed from the Japanese Palace and combined with similarly decorated Meissen porcelain to form a dinner service that was presented as a gift to Sir Thomas Robinson (1695–1770), a British diplomat who visited Dresden in 1737. Towards the end of the 18th century, the jars were fitted with gilt-bronze mounts which necessitated removing the porcelain handles, thus altering their appearance and function. A surviving drawing for the mounts indicates that they were produced in the workshop of Luigi Valadier (1726–1785), the leading goldsmith and jeweler in Rome in the late eighteenth century.

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