The Art Institute's extensive European decorative arts collection of 25,000 objects includes furniture, ceramics, metalwork, glass, enamels, and ivory from 1100 to the present.

Highlights of the collection include Continental glass; English, French, and German ceramics; English 18th-century silver; French 19th-century silver; and furniture from the early 17th century to the present.

The department also contains 1,544 objects in the Arthur Rubloff Paperweight Collection.