Plain or Fancy: Restraint and Exuberance in the Decorative Arts

Exhibition objects

Bottle with two white fillets
Date: 16th century
Accession Number: 81.8.35
Jasper Cup with Gilded-Silver Mounts
Date: third quarter 14th century
Accession Number: 2000.504
Wine goblet
Otto Prutscher (Austrian, Vienna 1880–1949 Vienna)
Date: ca. 1905
Accession Number: 1989.154
Beaker
Date: first quarter 17th century
Accession Number: 91.1.1430
Tea Infuser and Strainer
Marianne Brandt (German, Chemnitz 1893–1984 Kirchberg)
Date: ca. 1924
Accession Number: 2000.63a-c
Plate
T. G., London
Date: 1655–56
Accession Number: 03.2.13

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Plain or Fancy?

Restraint and Exuberance in the Decorative Arts

February 26–August 18, 2013

Modernism was not the first movement to cast a shadow on ornament and adornment, though it was the most effective one. This exhibition contrasts austere works of art with ornate ones, encouraging viewers to examine their own responses and to consider them in the light of different stylistic imperatives of the past. Drawn from the Museum's collection of European sculpture and decorative arts, the exhibition follows the theme from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century.