Plate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese export porcelain was one of the luxuries deemed essential to a well-appointed eighteenth-century house. Until 1784, when direct trade began between China and America, Chinese porcelain came to the colonies by way of Europe. The overglaze floral decoration on this service, made for Samuel and Judith (née Commelin) Verplanck of New York, is entirely European. Were it not for its unbroken family history, the close relationship of the design to that on Meissen porcelain would suggest that it had been made for the German or Scandinavian market. The service was presumably ordered for the Verplancks’ house at 3 Wall Street, where they lived from 1763 until 1803.

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