The European Decorative Arts section encompasses gold and silver, sculpture, ceramics, glass, enamels, arms and armour, dress, tapestries, textiles and furniture made in Britain and Continental Europe between 1200 and 1850.

Among the outstanding items are the Saint-Porchaire ewer, the Meissen lion, the travelling service of Napoleon’s sister, Princess Pauline Borghese, and half of the huge silver-gilt ‘tea service’ supplied in connection with the Emperor Napoleon’s marriage to the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria in 1810.

Other highlights include the seventeen-piece, silver-gilt Lennoxlove toilet service (one of only three Parisian toilet services to survive from the reign of the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV), the gold snuffboxes from the James Cathcart White collection, and the porcelain made at Worcester, Bristol and the Wedgwood factory during the eighteenth century.

In addition to metalwork and ceramics, the section is responsible for two of the largest collections of historic dress and textiles and of furniture in the United Kingdom. Among the principal items in these collections are the 17th-century Venetian baroque table by Lucio de Lucci and the Kinghorne table carpet from Glamis Castle. The section also curates Scottish furniture and Scottish dress and textiles, and we have important holdings of domestic and professional embroidery, woven and printed fabrics, 18th and 19th-century dress and accessories, and lace.

There are also a large number of items owned by the Dukes of Hamilton, from Hamilton Palace, and such Scottish artist-collectors as Horatio McCulloch and Sir Joseph Noel Paton, along with major collections of Italian maiolica, Venetian glass, and sculptors’ terracotta and plaster models.

Meet the team