Asia and Africa
ca. 1750–60
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain
Dimensions
Height: 8 in. (20.3 cm)
Classification
Ceramics-Porcelain
Culture
French
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Estate of James Hazen Hyde, 1959
Accession Number
59.208.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Asia and Africa** (ca. 1750–60), a delicate soft-paste porcelain figurine by Friedrich Elias Meyer, just 8 inches tall and captures the whimsical elegance of mid-18th-century French arts. Crafted during the height of Europe's porcelain mania, this piece likely personifies the continents through playful children accompanied by lions—evident from its tags—symbolizing exotic realms in a Rococo spirit of fantasy and global curiosity. Now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department, it was a generous gift from the Estate of James Hazen Hyde in 1959...
About the Artist
Friedrich Elias Meyer · 1723–1785
Friedrich Elias Meyer der Ältere (1723–1785) was a prominent German sculptor and porcelain modeler whose career bridged the glittering Rococo era's fascination with delicate, ornate figurines and grand table services. Born in Erfurt to sculptor Matthias Meyer, he grew up in Gotha after his father's early death and began his apprenticeship in 1737 under court sculptor Michael Grünbeck. By 1741, Mey...