Basin

Master Potter A

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Emily de Forest rightly considered this mid-17th-century basin to be the most important piece of pottery in her collection. Made by an artist who marked it with the initial “A,” this flat-bottomed lebrillo is decorated with a bold pattern of cobalt blue lines whose interstices are filled with fine black lines and dots that imitate lacework. The inscription encircling the rim of the basin indicates that it was made for the sole purpose of washing purificators, the altar linens used to wipe the Eucharistic chalice after Communion.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art