In addition to English ceramics, the Birmingham Museum of Art houses a small collection of continental European pottery and porcelain dating from the Renaissance through the late twentieth century. Comprised of Italian majolica and French faience as well as both hard- and soft-paste porcelain and contemporary Danish stoneware, highlights of the collection include twenty-seven exceptional porcelain figures modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler for the Meissen porcelain manufactory in Germany, bequeathed to the Museum by Eugenia Woodward Hitt in 1991.

The Wedgwood collection is complemented by the Museum’s large collection of eighteenth-century English pottery and porcelain, which includes objects of all types from a variety of factories and regions. Formed primarily through the bequests of Frances Oliver in 1972 and Catherine H. Collins in 1998, the collection numbers more than 800 pieces and illustrates the development of the ceramics industry in Britain during the period. New techniques and materials, such as transfer printing and the use of Plaster of Paris in mold making, are illustrated through objects in the collection, as are new types and shapes developed for new uses. In a century during which scientific, technological, and economic advances led to an expanding market in England, both functional and luxury objects of pottery and porcelain were made in great quantity and were consequently brought within reach of a wider public.

The Birmingham Museum of Art is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Wedgwood pottery in the world and the only collection of its kind in the United States. The Dwight and Lucille Beeson Wedgwood Collection, bequeathed to the Museum in 1976, includes more than 1,400 pieces of Wedgwood dating from the inception of the factory in 1759 through the early nineteenth century, illustrating the range of both useful and ornamental wares produced during the lifetime of Josiah I. . The Beesons bought their first piece of Wedgwood around 1946 and soon became enthusiastic collectors, honing their knowledge of the field, and buying and selling pieces in an effort to create an outstanding assemblage of only the finest works.

In 2008, the Museum acquired a second significant collection: the Buten Wedgwood Collection with more than 8,000 pieces of pottery dating from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. Formed by Harry and Nettie Buten, contemporaries of the Beesons, the Buten Collection also includes many rare and important pieces produced during the eighteenth century. Yet, these two collections have surprisingly little overlap. Rather, the strength of the Buten Collection lies in those objects produced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the acquisition of this exceptional collection by the Museum allows us for the first time to tell the entire Wedgwood story.

The Museum’s collection of European ceramics spans more than 400 years and includes all types of pottery and porcelain from a variety of factories and regions.

The Department of European Decorative Arts forms the core of the Museum’s permanent collection. Comprised of several individual groups of objects acquired by the Museum over the past sixty years, this “collection of collections” contains more than 16,000 pieces dating from the Renaissance period to the present day, including pottery and porcelain, silver, ironwork, furniture, and glass.

Notable holdings include the only known collection of nineteenth-century European decorative cast iron in the United States – the Gustav Lamprecht Collection – and the Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection of eighteenth-century French art, including furniture, mounted porcelain, and gilt bronzes from the Régence period through the French Revolution. The Museum is also home to one of the largest collections of Wedgwood ceramics in the world.

The Department of European Decorative Arts is continually growing and evolving, and remains committed to acquiring, preserving, and displaying the finest examples of European decorative arts of all periods.

Among the highlights of the European art holdings is the Kress Collection of Renaissance Art, featuring Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculpture and decorative arts dating from the late 13th century to c.1750, with works by Pietro Perugino, Antonio Canaletto, and Paris Bordone. Other strengths include 17th-century Dutch paintings by Jacob van Ruisdael, Ferdinand Bol, and Balthasar van der Ast; British 18th-century painting, with portraits by Thomas Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence; and 18th- and 19th-century French paintings by Francois-Hubert Drouais, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Courbet, and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.