Slip cup

Slip cup

Judah R. Teaney

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This highly ornamented cup is a potter’s decorating tool. It accommodates four quills through which slip, or liquid clay, could flow. With it, the potter could draw four parallel lines at once.


The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.