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2219.txt | Compote
Union Porcelain Works
American
1885
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
Union Porcelain Works was one of the most important and inventive American porcelain manufacturers in the second-half of the nineteenth century. In addition to their imaginative works designed by the German-born artistic director, Karl H. L. Müller, the firm’s mainstay was the production of heavy porcelain hotel dinnerware. This extensive service was made by Thomas Carll Smith, head of the Union Porcelain Works, as a gift to his daughter, Pastora Forest Smith Chace. The neoclassical decoration of the gilt bellflower and basket motif is complimented by turquoise enamel. Unlike the firm’s more eccentric and lavish designs created for their display at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, the pottery favored a more restrained classical style for their dinner services. This service descended in the Chace family.
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561318.txt | Canopic Chest Lid Fragment
New Kingdom, Ramesside
ca. 1194–1188 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 122
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472370.txt | Capital
French
late 12th century
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 03
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548952.txt | Osirid Figure of Iry
New Kingdom
ca. 1479–1458 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 116
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10038.txt | Figure of a Tobacco Auctioneer
1800–1830
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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249803.txt | Glass astragal (knucklebone)
Greek
3rd–2nd century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 156
Translucent amber brown.
Shaped like the knucklebone of a sheep or goat. Solid with mold seam along one side.
Intact; severe pitting, dulling, and patches of iridescent weathering.
In antiquity, one of the most popular games of chance was played with astragaloi, knucklebones of sheep and goats. They could be used like dice or like jacks, thrown in the air and caught on the back of the hand. Knucklebones have been found in tombs where they must have been intended to help the deceased while away endless time.
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435985.txt | Study for "The Destruction of Sodom"
Camille Corot
French
1843
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 803
This small sketch records Corot’s composition for
The Destruction of Sodom
(29.100.18) as the artist conceived it in 1843. That year, the large painting was rejected by the jurors of the Paris Salon but it was accepted when Corot resubmitted it in 1844.
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751511.txt | Blanket strip
Central Plains, probably Lakota/Teton Sioux, Native American
ca. 1830
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 746
The cross within a circle, the principal design element on this blanket strip, is one of the most visually powerful motifs in Plains art; it symbolizes the circle of the world, the four directions, and the sacred center—concepts fundamental to Plains worldviews. The massive strip also conveys wealth and prestige. The beading is a blend of shorter lane-stitch rows and the longer spot-stitch method, resulting in thousands of contrasting blue and white antique beads affixed to the leather. As glass beads became more plentiful through trade in the early decades of the nineteenth century, artists increasingly used them to present community affiliations, connections to place, or status.
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11326.txt | Sunset Sky
John Frederick Kensett
American
1872
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
This lovingly wrought study, perhaps set down in direct witness but more likely freshly recollected, was never developed into a finished painting, but became the obvious source of the artist's "Sunset". Along with "Sunset on the Sea" and a few other pictures of his late career, Kensett uncharacteristically indulged a warm, highly saturated palette at variance with the pearly gray tonality of his signature style. At the acme of an enviously successful career and in the relative privacy of his island studio in Long Island Sound, Kensett may well have felt a license that he had not previously to broaden, in his typically measured terms, his aesthetic vocabulary—here to include the richly chromatic effects of J. M. W. Turner or even those that marked the pictures of his colleagues Frederic E. Church and Sanford R. Gifford.
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241287.txt | Terracotta statuette of a woman
Greek, Cypriot
3rd century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 171
The figurine is mold-made and hollow. The back is mold-made, showing the principal elements of the anatomy and drapery.
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329885.txt | Pectoral Fragment
Late New Kingdom–early Third Intermediate Period
ca. 1200–700 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
This fragmentary pectoral is made in a greenish blue faience. The decoration in low relief shows a standing man, his arms upraised in an attitude of adoration, in front of Anubis, the god of embalming, here represented as a recumbent jackal. The blue-green color had a regenerative significance for the ancient Egyptians, explaining why objects made in blue and green faience were used for the burial equipment.
Made from a mold, without personalized details (like the deceased’s name), objects such as this pectoral could be described as mass-produced.
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43306.txt | Covered box with floral design
China
late 18th–early 19th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 219
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469988.txt | Armorial Roundel
German
ca. 1500
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 19
This roundel probably represents the members of a confraternity or honorary society. In the nineteenth century, this glass roundel was in a castle on the Moselle River, the home of Baron von Liebig, a collector of stained glass.
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8734.txt | Tongs
J. S. Porter
American
1800–1810
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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253683.txt | Silver ring
Greek
ca. 3rd–2nd century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 171
Archaistic Athena Promachos or Alkidemos striding with left foot advanced.
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6719.txt | Porringer
John Tanner
American
1750–75
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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232269.txt | Side table (one of a pair)
After a design by
Matthias Lock
British
ca. 1740
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 511
This monumental pair of side tables (see also 2007.196.2) displays many similarities to an unfinished drawing by the designer and carver Matthias Lock (ca. 1710–1765) in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Although Lock is best known for his designs in an English version of the French Rococo style, this drawing is in the bold manner associated with the English Palladian movement. Propagated in early eighteenth-century England by the architect and designer William Kent and his patron Lord Burlington, this architectural style also affected furniture design. Characteristic are the large shell motifs, classical masks, lion's paws, curling acanthus leaves, and running Vitruvian scroll on these tables. Particularly beautiful is the varied surface treatment of the water gilding, with its burnished highlights, as seen, for instance, in the chiseled features of the satyrs carved at the knees of the cabriole legs, contrasting with the ring punched matte ground. Acquired for the Museum's dining room from Kirtlington Park, near Oxford, these side tables were originally part of a larger set (a nearly identical pair is still in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts).
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1076.txt | Cabinet
American
1679
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
The ornamentation composed of applied elements and geometric patterns of moldings on the door of this small cabinet achieves a distinctly architectural effect. Several different kinds of wood were employed; originally, they differed in color, adding to the complexity of the scheme. Carving, the other major method of decoration used on seventeenth-century style colonial furniture, adorns the sides of the piece. This is one of four similar cabinets attributed to the tradition of joinery brought to Salem, Massachusetts, by John Symonds, who came to Salem in 1636 from Yarmouth, England. The octagonal sunburst motif on the door was a geometric design favored by the Symonds shops. The center plaque on the door is inscribed with the date [16]79 and the initials of the original owners, probably Ephraim and Mary Herrick of Beverly, Massachusetts. Behind the locked door are ten small drawers of varying sizes meant for the safekeeping of documents and small valuables of all kinds.
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192701.txt | Double-spouted vase with cover
After a design by
Reinhold Vasters
German
ca. 1870–90
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 556
Although not a literal copy of an Italian Mannerist object, the vase is strongly reminiscent of Milanese lapidary work of the late sixteenth century. It was, in fact, included in the 1893 Paris sale of the collection of Frédéric Spitzer as an Italian work of the sixteenth century, but Vasters's drawings of the vase unquestionably identify it as a work of the nineteenth century.
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22934.txt | Smallsword with Scabbard
Japanese, possibly Dejima, for the Western market
ca. 1730
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 376
By the early seventeenth century, the rapier, a long slender thrusting sword, began to dominate as the gentleman’s weapon of choice. During the course of the century, however, as civilian fencing techniques became more specialized and refined, the rapier developed into a lighter, trimmed-down weapon known by about 1700 as the smallsword. Smallswords, often richly decorated, remained an integral part of a gentleman’s wardrobe until the wearing of swords in civilian settings went out of fashion at the end of the eighteenth century, at which time pistols were replacing swords as arms most frequently used in personal duels. The majority of smallsword hilts are made of silver or steel, but many also employ a wide variety of luxurious materials, such as gold, porcelain, and enamel. At their best, smallswords combine the crafts of swordsmith, cutler, and jeweler to create an elegant weapon that was also a wearable work of art.
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10010.txt | Astragal-end Work Table
American
1805–15
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
This astragal-end ladies sewing or worktable is distinguished by its tall, elegant, and finely reeded legs. The pleated silk bag, which held sewing fabric or needlework, is patterned after a design in plate 26 of Thomas Sheraton’s "The Cabinet- Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing-Book" (1794).
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2557.txt | Covered Vase
Chinese
1736–95
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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5238.txt | Furniture Hardware
Retailer
Henry Kellam Hancock
1820–30
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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455081.txt | Reciting Poetry in a Garden
first quarter 17th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 462
A lush landscape provides the setting for a picnic, complete with fruit and beverages in Chinese‑style blue-and-white vessels. Two men sit in conversation, one writing and holding a safina (an oblong format book typically containing poetry), flanked by a man standing on the left and a woman on the right carrying a covered bowl decorated with Chinese designs. The patterned robes, silk sashes, and striped turbans resemble costumes depicted in seventeenth‑century Persian drawings and paintings.
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475351.txt | Grisaille Fragment with Plant Motif
Crusader
1220–72
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 303
Painted in grisaille (shades of grey) in a style associated with the mid-1200s in France, these fragments are among numerous remnants of the elaborate glass windows that once decorated Castle Montfort/Starkenberg. One shows the nose and eye of a human face; the others display portions of vines with fleur-de-lis terminals.
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4126.txt | Goblet
Challinor, Taylor and Company
American
1870–90
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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463533.txt | Jug with Flattened Spout
Italian
ca. 1300
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 307
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50434.txt | Signet Ring with Phoenix Motif
Indonesia (Java)
early 9th–14th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 247
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200595.txt | Mechanical table
Jean Henri Riesener
French
Allegorical frieze attributed to
Louis Simon Boizot
French
and
Nicolas-Antoine Damerat
French
1781
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 546
Described in an inventory of 1789 simply as a writing table, this wonderful piece offered its original owner, Marie-Antoinette, many more options than that. Made by Jean-Henri Riesener in 1781 for the queen’s Grand Cabinet Intérieur at Versailles, the table is fitted with a mechanism that allows the top to slide back and, at the same time, the main drawer to move forward. The central compartment of the drawer encloses a velvetlined writing surface that can be ratcheted up to form a bookstand and reversed to show a mirror. The marquetry surface on top is richly embellished with a pattern of trelliswork enclosing rosettes frequently used by Riesener on furniture for Marie-Antoinette. The central medallion encloses a trophy with the attributes of Poetry and Literature and the Latin motto Numine afflatur (“inspired by the divine nod”). This exquisite marquetry decoration, now faded, must originally have confirmed an eighteenth-century description of the technique as “painting in wood.” Judging from the well-preserved marquetry on the lids of the inner compartments, which can be released by pressing a small button on the drawer front, and on the outer sides of the drawers, visible when the table is open, the exquisite design of the top must have been very colorful. This the cabinetmaker achieved through a clever selection of contrasting woods and the use of organic and, therefore, not very permanent dyes to expand the natural palette of the wood. The table is mounted with gilt-bronze moldings around the top, along the lower edge of the frieze, and running down the tapering legs. Gilt-bronze plaques in relief adorn the drawer front and the sides. This multifunctional table mécanique was sent to the Château de Saint-Cloud in 1785, where it was placed in Marie-Antoinette’s dressing room and later used there with a daybed, bergère, and fire screen by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené, now also at the Museum.
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751539.txt | Mask
Yup'ik, Native American
ca. 1900
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 746
Within the bentwood border of this mask, a hunter’s kayak searches for quarry. Near the center of the boat, the face of a humanoid seal spirit emerges, with an unidentified spirit visage above. The tiny bird head at the bow may portray the hunter as seen through the eyes of his prey. Fish and flippers surround the vessel, representing the supernatural animals that slip through the thumbless spirit hands and into the physical world to be hunted.
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9402.txt | Vase
Designed by
Louis C. Tiffany
American
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company
American
1893–96
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 743
This object forms part of a group of over forty given to the Museum in 1896 by Louisine and Henry Osborne Havemeyer (96.17.9–.56). The gift was the first American glass to enter the Museum's collection. Most likely prompted by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Havemeyers presented their collection of Tiffany Favrile glass to the Museum only three years after Tiffany started making decorative blown-glass vessels. The shapes, colors, and finishes of Tiffany's vases and plaques were inspired by the natural world and ancient glass.
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14276.txt | Cream Pitcher
George Duncan and Sons
American
ca. 1878–90
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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306696.txt | Breiner. Jean-Baptiste. 31 ans, né à Bar sur Aube (Aube). Mécanicien. Anarchiste. 5/3/94.
Alphonse Bertillon
French
1894
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 851
Born into a distinguished family of scientists and statisticians, Bertillon began his career as a clerk in the Identification Bureau of the Paris Prefecture of Police in 1879. Tasked with maintaining reliable police records of offenders, he developed the first modern system of police identification. The system, which became known as Bertillonage, had three components: anthropometric measurement, precise verbal description of the prisoner’s physical characteristics, and standardized photographs of the face.
In the early 1890s Paris was subject to a wave of bombings and assassination attempts carried out by anarchist proponents of "propaganda of the deed." One of Bertillon’s greatest successes came in March 1892, when his system of identification led to the arrest of an anarchist bomber who went by the name Ravachol (2005.100.375.348). The publicity surrounding the case earned Bertillon the Legion of Honor and encouraged police departments around the world to adopt his anthropometric system.
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544826.txt | Arm Panel From a Ceremonial Chair of Thutmose IV
New Kingdom
ca. 1400–1390 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 119
This wooden panel is part of the left arm of a throne that belonged to the pharaoh Thutmose IV. Traces of glue on the surface suggest that the low relief, with its exquisitely carved details, was once covered with gold foil. On one side, the king is shown as a standing sphinx subduing the enemies of Egypt. The falcon at the upper right represents the god Horus who is identified as "the great god, with dappled plumage, giving life and dominion." The text above the sphinx's back reads: "Horus, the lord of might and action, trampling all foreign lands."
On the other side, the panel depicts the enthroned king wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt. In front of him is the lion-headed goddess Weret-hekau who is depicted in coronation scenes and is associated with the uraeus cobra at the front of the king's crown. Behind the king is the ibis-headed god Thoth who presents him with "millions of years of life and dominion united with eternity."
A second arm panel from the same throne is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They were discovered in Thutmose IV's tomb in the Valley of the Kings by Theodore M. Davis, who acquired them in the division of finds. The scenes on the panels suggest that the throne was used either for the king's coronation, or for his thirty-year rejuvenation festival, the
Heb-Sed
.
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#3415. Arm Panel from a Throne of Thutmose IV
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192729.txt | Triton
Giambologna
Netherlandish
1590s
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 509
For its superior quality, scale, and historical significance, this statue of a sea deity holds a preeminent position in The Met’s collection of bronzes. It originally surmounted a freestanding fountain (now lost). Limbs akimbo, the Triton grasps a dolphin’s tail behind him for purchase, thrusts out his chest, and puffs his cheeks to blow into an elongated, shell-like horn held straight above his upturned head. Water bursting from the horn would have cascaded over the figure and splashed into the basin below with a pleasing rush of sound and shimmers of light. Conceived to be viewed from all angles, the figure’s implied rotation is amplified by limbs that extend outward in every direction like fans on a pinwheel. Repetitions in the design reinforce its in-the-round character: the Triton perches on a circular base formed of three dolphins with interlacing tails and heads resting on three inverted scallop shells. The pictorial quality of the modeling and the dazzling anatomy of the lithe, supple body bespeak a substantial creative investment. In the extraordinary head of hair, one can sense the fastidious rendering of each lock and curl done in the wax.
The statue’s attribution to Giambologna is now well established, and in all probability it can be identified as one of several bronzes by the sculptor that Ferdinando I de’ Medici gifted to Henry IV of France in 1598. Four smaller variants are known: in the Frick,[1] the Kunsthistorisches Museum,[2] and the Louvre;[3] and one formerly in the Cyril Humphris collection.[4] The Met’s statue, the largest of the group, is undoubtedly the most complex, and there are subtle differences among the variants, factors that were carefully weighed when attempting to identify the Triton’s prototype—the invenzione—and its creator.[5]
The fortuna critica of the Triton is inextricably linked to a large marble in Palermo (Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas) usually assigned to Battista Lorenzi, but recently revealed as a copy of Lorenzi’s original, which was shipped to Madrid in the 1640s and is now lost.[6] The bronze entered The Met in 1913 as part of the bequest of Benjamin Altman. It was initially attributed to Giambologna’s prolific student Adriaen de Vries. Erich von Strohmer agreed and placed it at the end of the 1620s due to its similarity to de Vries’s Tritons on the Fountain of Neptune in the Schloss Frederiksborg, Drottningholm, dated 1617. Lars Larsson, in his monograph on de Vries, rejected the attribution. Hans Weihrauch was the first to propose the name of Battista Lorenzi for our bronze, on the basis of his marble Triton in Palermo. John Pope-Hennessy agreed, with the caveat “inspired by Giovanni Bologna.” Manfred Leithe-Jasper, also noting our statue’s closeness to Giambologna’s style, accepted the attribution to Lorenzi and suggested it was the model for the smaller bronzes.[7]
Meanwhile, in his doctoral dissertation of 1959, James Holderbaum had included the bronze in Giambologna’s oeuvre.[8] Twenty years later, the master’s paternity was bolstered by Herbert Keutner, who considered the Altman Triton an autograph work from the late 1590s (although based on a 1560s model), given the formal affinities with the artist’s Angel for the Duomo in Pisa and the Flying Mercury in the Louvre, “works which are comparable in their relatively summary modelling and chasing and in which the collaboration of Pietro Francavilla and Pietro Tacca has to be allowed for.”[9] Keutner’s analysis is based on a 1598 inventory of Ferdinando I de’ Medici’s collection that mentions “items that His Highness sent to France . . . [including] a triton with dolphins that spurts water, from the hand of Gian Bologna. Pounds 110 [about 37 kilos].”[10] James David Draper argued that the Altman Triton is “another case of an early masterpiece” by Giambologna, “perhaps as early as 1562,” associating it with his Samson (V&A) and Florence Triumphant over Pisa (Bargello).[11] In light of these developments, Leithe-Jasper shifted his attribution from Lorenzi to Giambologna.[12] Finally, Charles Avery supported Giambologna’s authorship in his 1987 monograph on the artist.[13] Notwithstanding disagreements over dating and the more or less strong contribution of the workshop, the assignment to Giambologna now appears settled.[14]
Provenance remains an open question, however. Confirmation that our Triton is indeed the bronze delivered to France by Ferdinando I before 1598, as Keutner believed, would of course solidify its dating. The bronzes were escorted to Paris by the goldsmith Jacques Bylivelt and the composer Emilio de’ Cavalieri, superintendent of the Guardaroba Medicea.[15] As corroborated in documents published by Blanca Truyols, the sculptures were installed in the gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye at the behest of Henry IV. Truyols also stressed the significance of the Triton’s presence on a list of bronzes, including a Mercury, cast by Domenico Portigiani for Giambologna and sent to France (“In France a figure of 3 braccia to Sig. Girolamo Gondi, and two of 2 braccia for the King’s garden, and a Mercury and Triton”).[16]
Alexander Rudigier proposed that a sketchy seated figure blowing a horn visible in Abraham Bosse’s 1624 print depicting the so-called Grotto of the Lady Who Plays the Organ in the gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye might be the Altman Triton (fig. 116a).[17] The statue’s location in a niche, per the engraving, would not have favored an in-the-round statue, but its scale—medium-sized, like ours—supports the identification.[18] Further evidence of the Triton’s presence in the grotto is provided in André Duchesne’s description from 1609. Recall that a large bronze Mercury was sent to France along with a Triton. Based on Giambologna’s more famous rendition today in the Bargello, the Mercury was cast for Ferdinando when he was still a cardinal in Rome.[19] According to Duchesne, in the grotto was “a Mercury near the window, which has one foot up in the air and the other [foot] planted on a support, loudly sounding a trumpet.”[20] Clearly, Duchesne conflated the two bronzes, as the first half of the description corresponds to the Mercury and the second half to the Triton.
Though there is a marked discrepancy between the current weight of our bronze (53.9 pounds) and that of the one sent to Henry IV noted in the 1598 document (110 pounds), a number of factors might account for this, which on its own cannot be considered a binding reason for accepting or rejecting the identification. Rudigier and Truyols provide a plausible explanation: the statue would likely have been fitted with a lead hydraulic mechanism before its transport to France.[21] Many other factors have no doubt altered the weight of the Triton through the centuries. Recent technical analysis carried out by Richard Stone revealed a thick-walled cast with a continuous layer of copper corrosion on the surface—largely explained by the Triton’s function as a fountain.[22]
All of these factors lead to the conclusion that the Altman Triton and the Giambologna bronze that Ferdinando I presented to Henry IV are one and the same.[23]
How and when Giambologna arrived at the original invenzione, whose influence can be seen in Bernini’s Triton and beyond, is another point of contention. Keutner located the original model for the bronzes in the Triumph of Neptune relief on the Fountain of the Ocean in the Boboli Gardens.[24] The fountain is a mature masterpiece by Giambologna whose figures were sculpted between 1571 and 1576.[25] Does this detail help us in dating the Altman Triton? If we subscribe to the supposition that Lorenzi’s Triton in Palermo was inspired by Giambologna, we must then date his invenzione before 1577, when Lorenzi’s work was documented in Sicily.[26] On the other hand, Giambologna’s prototype may not be the Altman Triton. Instead, our bronze could be based on a previous model by the master that he revisited in the 1590s. This is supported by technical characteristics that indicate the Altman bronze is an indirect cast, pointing to the existence of a preserved model.[27] In this regard, Truyols claimed that an earlier version of our Triton had been cast for Emilio de’ Cavalieri, probably in 1591.[28] Truyols’s theory is based on two pieces of documentation. The first records a payment to Portigiani for casting an unspecified bronze figure for Cavalieri in 1591.[29] The second, a letter of July 3, 1599, from Francesco Bonciani, Ferdinando I’s agent in Paris, reports the French king’s satisfaction with the gift of bronzes, adding: “Let me also tell your Lordship that, for a fountain [Tommaso] Francino would like to do, it would be perfect [to have] a Triton that spurts water upward similar to the one of Signor Emilio dei Cavalieri, which was sent here for the King.”[30] Bonciani is clearly requesting a pendant to the Triton already in France, but Truyols misreads this sentence as a reference to another cast of the Triton ostensibly made for Cavalieri before he delivered the one gifted to Henry IV, and mistakenly concluded that Portigiani cast two Triton bronzes in the 1590s. It is not by chance that Portigiani, in his list of bronzes cast for Giambologna, mentions only one Triton, that sent to France.[31]
On a second level of analysis, does Bonciani’s letter tell us that the Triton presented to Henry IV was previously in the possession of and/or commissioned by Cavalieri? It’s a possibility. This opens up an exciting avenue of investigation: the connection between the Triton and the world of music, which might corroborate an intuition that Michael Cole had well before a possible link between Cavalieri and the bronze surfaced. Cole argued that “a catalogue of Giambologna’s exhaling sculptures would have to include his Bagpiper [the Altman Triton], which not only fills a container with breath, but connects that breath to a notional tune. It would also have to note that Giambologna was one of many sculptors to turn his exhalation into music, materializing in water the sonorous waves of a wind instrument.”[32] What if Giambologna created the Triton under the intellectual stimulus of the influential Florentine musician? Cavalieri may well be the key figure in this story. All signs point to the Triton retaining such musical connotations in its translation to a French context. The Grotto of the Lady Who Plays the Organ, if that was indeed the Triton’s landing place, was a recreational space obviously linked to music, but also an environment in which the relationship between sound and water was celebrated and performatively explored, as is made evident in Duchesne’s description of the grotto.
Returning to the question of the invenzione: Giambologna likely formulated his design for a freestanding male figure blowing a horn in the late 1560s or early 1570s, the years in which he worked on the Fountain of the Ocean. This dating is compatible with the chronology of several other Florentine statues with the same musical characteristics sculpted in the 1570s: Battista Lorenzi’s marble Triton (before 1577); the marble Misenus and the now-lost stone Triton carved by Stoldo Lorenzi for the Villa Corsi (1571–73); and a lost marble Mercury by Vincenzo de’ Rossi.[33] We do not know the nature, materiality, and use of this hypothetical first model created by Giambologna, but it might have been instrumental in the making of the Altman Triton, whose casting can be reasonably dated to the 1590s.
In regard to the invenzione, the relationship between our Triton and a drawing in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, should be clarified.[34] Attributed to an anonymous seventeenth-century Flemish artist, the drawing depicts a Triton very similar to ours and the one in Palermo, surmounted on a basin identical to the figure designed by Giambologna for his Fountain of Samson and a Philistine. More recent investigations reveal that the Cooper-Hewitt sheet is not a design by Giambologna, but rather depicts a fountain in the Jardín de la Reina in the Buen Retiro, Madrid, that was created by assembling Lorenzi’s marble Triton (transported from Palermo) and the original basin of Giambologna’s Samson fountain.[35] The drawing thus does not provide any useful information for the history of the Altman Triton’s conception.
Giambologna’s composition remained popular well into the modern era. During the eighteenth century, the model was studied in England with the same reverence accorded an ancient sculpture. A drawing by Edward Francis Burney shows the Triton at the rear of a classroom set on a pedestal inside a large niche (fig. 116b). It corresponds to the Altman Triton in its features, scale, and even the shell-shaped base, and may very well illustrate a plaster copy of it. We do not know how or where the Royal Academy would have acquired such a copy (it would be a stretch to think that the bronze was ever in England), but the work was deemed essential to education in the British Academy. A modern reproduction was displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, a testament to the enduring fame of Giambologna’s invenzione. The exhibition catalogue illustrates it with the caption, “This fine statuette and pedestal, in bronze, are contributed by De Amici Angelo, the work of the sculptor Franzosi Giuseppe, both in Milan” (fig. 116c). This Milanese reproduction looks very much like the Frick variant, suggesting that the latter is indeed a late nineteenth-century cast.
-FL
Footnotes
(For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.)
1. The very nimble Frick Triton (1916.2.44; 44.1 cm) entered the literature thanks to Wilhelm von Bode (1907–12, vol. 2, pl. CXLIX; and 1910, vol. 1, pp. xxviii–xxix, vol. 2, p. 5, no. 121, fig. LXXXIV) with an unpromising attribution to Cellini. Wiles 1933, p. 89, cited Bode’s opinion but pointed up affinities with Giambologna’s Mercury and Samson. Weihrauch 1967, p. 188, with little reasoning, named Battista Lorenzi, accepted by Pope-Hennessy 1970, pp. 203–6, even though the latter acknowledged significant differences in finish and details and concludes that The Met and Frick pieces could “hardly have been produced in the same studio.” Lastly, Keutner (in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, p. 92, cat. 41) linked everything back to Giambologna but, leery of a full attribution, considered the Frick bronze to be a “later cast.”
2. Wiles 1933, pp. 88–89, brought the Vienna Triton (KK 9115; 44.8 cm) closer to Giambologna. Leithe-Jasper (in Tokyo 1973, cat. 90, and Feuchtmüller 1976, pp. 88–89, cat. 88) assigned it to Battista Lorenzi, in accord with Weilhrauch 1967, p. 188. Keutner (in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, p. 92, no. 41) thought it “Possibly a cast by Pietro Tacca.” Leithe-Jasper 1986, pp. 220–22, cat. 56, embraced Keutner’s theory with an attribution “after Giambologna.”
3. Wiles 1933, pp. 88–89, 131, tentatively put forward Giambologna’s name for the Louvre Triton (TH 95; 42.5 cm), together with the Frick and Vienna statuettes. Following Weihrauch 1967, p. 188 (who, however, had not explicitly cited the Louvre Triton), Jestaz 1969, p. 81, labeled it “d’après Battista Lorenzi ?,” considering it closer to the manner of Giambologna. Keutner (in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, pp. 91–92, no. 41) was committed to the Louvre Triton as a Giambologna invention, with which Jestaz 1979, p. 78, immediately agreed. Jestaz also noted the existence of a silver Triton in the collection of Louis XIV (“Une figure de jeune homme qui joue du corps assis sur un grouppe de trois dauphins, un ligne et un corps d’argent vermeil doré d’Allemagne, haut de 18 pouces”; cited in Guiffrey 1885–86, vol. 1, p. 62, no. 426).
4. “A rare bronze figure of a Triton blowing a horn. Early 17th Century, after a model by Giambologna” (42 cm), Sotheby’s, New York, January 10–11, 1995, lot 216; see also Schallert 2001, p. 514 n. 6.
5. As if playing the game Spot the Difference, we find that in fact none of the small bronzes corresponds perfectly to the Altman Triton. Apart from the inevitable deviations that occur during casting, the chief variables are, first, the position of the legs: bent and spread apart in the Louvre and Frick bronzes; in the others, the left leg bent and the other lowered, almost kneeling. Second, the horn: a thin aperture in the Louvre, Vienna, and Frick casts; a wide trumpetlike blowhole on the Altman statue. Finally, on the Vienna statuette, the left arm does not rest on the rock base but extends away from the body and holds in the hand a pierced half-shell, which one infers was designed as a nozzle.
6. For the Lorenzi attribution, see Borghini 1584, p. 598; Wiles 1933, pp. 88–89, 131, 137–38. For the fate of Lorenzi’s original marble, see Loffredo 2012, pp. 84–86.
7. Altman 1914, p. 132, no. 72; Strohmer 1947–48, p. 120; Larsson 1967, p. 127, no. 26; Weihrauch 1967, p. 188; Pope-Hennessy 1970, pp. 203–6; Leithe-Jasper in Tokyo 1973, cat. 90, and Feuchtmüller 1976, pp. 88–89, cat. 88 (both on the Vienna Triton).
8. Holderbaum 1983, pp. 112, 334, fig. 103.
9. Keutner in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, pp. 92–93, cat. 41 (on the Louvre Triton).
10. “Copia di un inventario di robe che Sua Altezza à mandato in Francia . . . un tritone con dalfini che getta aqua di mano di gian bologna. libbre 110” (Keutner in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, p. 91). The inventory is published in full in Barocchi and Bertelà 2002–11, vol. 2.2, pp. 527–29. A new transcription is provided in Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 268–69, and, with several corrections, in Lurin 2018, pp. 123–24.
11. Draper 1978b.
12. Leithe-Jasper 1986, p. 220, cat. 56.
13. C. Avery 1987, p. 210; see also C. Avery 2006, p. 145.
14. For more recent scholarship, see Negri Arnoldi 1997, pp. 292–93; Schallert 2001; Cole 2003, pp. 144–45; Loffredo 2012, pp. 60, 97 n. 8; Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 255–56, 263, 293–96.
15. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 251–85. On Emilio de’ Cavalieri, see Kirkendale 2001.
16. This list is an undated autograph document, written by Domenico Portigiani most probably between the end of 1600 and the beginning of 1601, listing the bronzes cast for Giambologna and their whereabouts: “In Francia, una figura di 3 braccia al sig. Girolamo Gondi, et 2 di braccia 2 per il giardino del Re, et un Mercurio et Tritone.” Rudigier and Truyols 2016, p. 266. The list was first published in Francqueville 1968, pp. 149–50.
17. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 293–94; followed by Lurin 2018, p. 117. The caption on the bottom of the print reads: “Cecy est la Grotte de la Damoiselle qui Joue des Orgues laquelle Grotte est en une des teste de la Galerie de la Première terrasse du Châ[tea]u de S[aint] Germain en Laye au lieu Marqué E au portrait de S[aint] Germain. T[ommaso] de Francini inven[it], A[braham] Bosse sculp[sit] 1624.”
18. This issue is noted by Rudigier and Truyols 2016, p. 294.
19. On the contested claim that the Mercury sent to Henry IV is the Louvre’s Flying Mercury, see Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 289–93. For an opposing (and more convincing) argument, see Bresc-Bautier 2018.
20. Duchesne 1609, p. 277: “Il y a un Mercure près la fenestre, qui a un pied en l’air, & l’autre planté sur un apuy, sonnant & entonnant hautement une Trompette.” Ernstinger 1877, pp. 226–27, in his description of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, mentions only a “bronze statue of a Mercury on a column.”
21. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 263 n. 14, 294.
22. R. Stone/TR, April 15, 2011.
23. Rudigier assumes that Count Esterházy, Austrian envoy to Paris, purchased the bronze there. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, p. 294.
24. Specifically, two figures seen from the back; see Keutner in C. Avery and Radcliffe 1978, pp. 91–92, cat. 41.
25. For the chronology of the Fountain of the Ocean, see Laschke 2000, pp. 70–74; Morét 2003, pp. 262–72; and the documentation in Paolozzi Strozzi and Zikos 2006, pp. 246–48, cat. 48. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, p. 347 n. 29, attribute the reliefs to Hans Mont, who collaborated with Giambologna, offering no stylistic or documentary justification.
26. See Loffredo 2012, p. 57.
27. Conversations with conservators Richard Stone and Linda Borsch.
28. Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 255–56, 294.
29. Ibid., pp. 263 n. 13: “per havere ricotto et gittato una forma d’una figura al sig. Emilio Cavalieri.”
30. “né lascerò di dire a V. S. che per una fontana che li vorrebbe fare [Tommaso] Francino, sarebbe molto a proposito un Tritone che gittasse l’acqua in alto simile a quella del s.r Emilio dei Cavalieri venuto qua per il Re.” Rudigier and Truyols 2016, pp. 275–76.
31. In ibid., p. 282 n. 3, Truyols chalks up this absence to an incomplete list.
32. Cole 2003, p. 144.
33. On the origins and popularity of the subject of a male figure playing a horn, see Loffredo 2012, pp. 60–61.
34. Cooper-Hewitt, 1911-28-459; published in Wiles 1935, pp. 31–32, and Maser 1957, p. 23 n. 27, as by “Artist unknown, Netherlands, about 1650–1675.”
35. Loffredo 2012, p. 85. Another drawing of the same fountain can be found in the diplomatic diary of the admiral Edward Montagu, first earl of Sandwich, who in 1666 was sent to Spain by Charles II; see ibid., pp. 62–65. On Montagu at the Buen Retiro, see also J. Brown and Elliott 2003, p. 78, fig. 48.
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471137.txt | Corbel with Five Interlaced Hair-Pulling Acrobats
French
ca. 1150–1200
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 03
Mischief and humor abound on the ten architectural supports set around the perimeter of this gallery. Naked grimacing acrobats wrestle and pull violently at each others’ beards; a snarling beast proudly claims a bone. Similar mischievous, and sometimes mystifying, motifs are often found on corbels set just under the eaves of the roof on the outside of a church.
Notre-Dame-de-la-Grande-Sauve, the church from which these corbels come, was situated on one of the routes to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Set next to a great forest (the silva major from which its name comes) and dominating a hill overlooking the Gironde River, its community grew from seven monks at its founding in 1079 to some 300. The abbey benefited from donations from famous patrons, including a gift from Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Henry II king of England, in 1156.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the monastic buildings served as a prison. The church vaults collapsed in 1809, and a fire in 1910 further compromised the site. Still, some related corbels survive on the church exterior.
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555095.txt | Shabti of the Adoratrice of Hathor ("Duahathor") Henettawy, wife of Painedjem I
Third Intermediate Period
ca. 1064–1055 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
This small figurine is a
shabti
from the burial of a royal woman named Henettawy who lived during the early 21st Dynasty at Thebes. During this era, control of Egypt was divided between the kings in the north, who ruled from Tanis in the Nile Delta, and the High Priests of the great state god Amun, who controlled the southern part of the country. Henettawy was a wife of the High Priest of Amun and King
Painedjem I
, who ruled from Thebes. She was also the daughter of a king, likely either Ramesses XI or
Smendes (Nesbanebdjed) I
.
In the ancient Egyptian belief system, shabtis were avatars of the deceased who could be called upon to perform manual labor on his or her behalf in the afterlife. By Henettawy’s time, as many as 401 shabtis (a worker for each day of the year plus an overseer for each 10-day week) were included with the burials of wealthy people. Worker shabtis like this one can be identified by the agricultural tools they hold, whereas overseer shabtis typically wear a skirt and carry a whip.
In addition to being the wife and daughter of kings, Henettawy held a long list of royal titles, including King’s Mother, Mother of the God’s Wife of Amun, Mother of the High Priest of Amun, and the unique title Adoratrice of Hathor. She was also a First Great Chief of the Principal Musical Troupe of Amun, the title given to the head of the great god’s female clergy. These designations indicate that Henettawy was the highest-ranking female in the Theban area during her lifetime.
Henettawy’s list of titles alludes to several of her children who held important positions at Thebes. Notable among them are a son named
Psusennes I
, who became king, ruling from Tanis in the north, and a daughter,
Maatkare
, who held the title God’s Wife of Amun. There were three High Priests of Amun who were likely sons of Painedjem I,
Menkheperre
, Djedkhonsuefankh, and
Masaharta
; any or all of these may also have been Henettawy’s sons.
This shabti was presumably discovered in the “First Royal Cache” (TT320) in Western Thebes in a valley near the temples of Mentuhotep II and Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri. This hidden tomb contained the re-burials of a number of kings and queens of the New Kingdom (about 1550 to 1100 B.C.), along with the burials of Henettawy, Painedjem I, and members of their immediate family, spanning several generations.
For Queen Henettawy’s shabtis at The Met, see
O.C.847
,
10.130.1066
,
10.130.1067a
;
10.130.1067b
,
17.194.2403
,
17.194.2404
, and
44.4.88
.
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460984.txt | Pilgrim Flask
Bernard Palissy
French
probably 1556–67
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 951
Bernard Palissy was a French scientist, writer, garden designer, glassblower, painter, and ceramist. A devout and outspoken Huguenot, he was imprisoned for his religious beliefs and for his role in the Protestant riots of the first of the Wars of Religion. Catherine de'Medici, the French queen, who acted as his protector, commissioned Palissy to build a private grotto for her at the garden of the Tuileries palace. This pilgrim flask belongs to the small group of ceramics, the so-called rustic ceramics, attributed with certainty to Bernard Palissy and his workshop. The pilgrim flask is decorated with the characteristic shells and snakes associated with Palissy’s rustic vessels. Clay or plaster molds were taken of snakes and shells, and then a positive clay model was made from the molds. The pilgrim flask is an unusual form for Palissy, better known for his basins, pitchers, and dishes. Like Palissy’s other rustic works, the pilgrim flask had no utilitarian function.
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575345.txt | String of Carnelian Ball Beads
Middle Kingdom–Early New Kingdom
ca. 1981–1295 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 109
Thousands of beads of carnelian, amethyst, quartz, gold faience, and shell were discovered in the surface sand, or radim, of the North Pyramid at Lisht. These have been assembled into a number of necklaces, such as this example, composed primarily of large carnelian ball beads.
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545286.txt | Model of a Scribe’s Palette and Tablet
Middle Kingdom
ca. 2051–1981 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 105
Wooden models (such as 20.3.11) can include figures of scribes. This model scribe’s palette and tablet might have belonged to such a figure.
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9364.txt | Vase
New England Glass Company
American
1855–75
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 706
To imitate silver in glass, the glassblower poured a solution containing metallic silver into the cavity between the walls of a double walled vessel, and the solution adhered to its interior. The hole at the bottom was sealed to prevent discoloration and, in this case, was marked with the name of the manufactory.
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14510.txt | Vase
Chesapeake Pottery
American
1882–85
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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6057.txt | Plate
American
ca. 1832
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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471889.txt | Grisaille Panel
French
ca. 1265
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 08
These grisaille panels are part of a set of eight from a window in one of three chapels at the Norman residence of the French monarchs. They represent a mid-century transitional stage in royal French ateliers. The conventionalized acanthus buds are a continuation of earlier tastes, while the ivy leaves, delineated with hair-thin veins, reflect the newer, naturalizing tendencies. The castles in the border are devices of the kingdom of Castile and indicate royal patronage, probably that of Louis IX (1226-1272), who claimed the right to the Spanish throne through his mother, Blanche of Castile.
See 69.236.2–.9.
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7349.txt | Sconce
American or British
1800–1820
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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546957.txt | Rishi coffin
Second Intermediate Period–Early New Kingdom
ca. 1580–1479 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 114
Discovered in a rock-cut chamber built off the courtyard of a large Middle Kingdom tomb, this is an example of a
rishi
coffin, identified as such by the feather pattern painted on the lid. Such coffins appear first in the late Middle Kingdom, and are characteristic of late Dynasty 17 and early Dynasty 18, especially at Thebes.
A royal
nemes
headdress, painted in reds and greens with black detailing, frames the triangular, crudely modeled and painted face. On the top of the head is a vulture. This usurpation of royal iconography is seen in a number of contexts in the Middle Kingdom and later, and seems to be related to the identification of the deceased with Osiris, king of the dead, and with mortuary rituals. The mummy-like form, which had only recently become common in the late Middle Kingdom, also links this type to mummification. Around the neck of the deceased is a broad festival collar with falcon-head terminals. On top of the collar is a second vulture figure, in this case holding an
ankh
, the hieroglyph for life, in one talon and a
shen
ring, symbolizing eternity, in the other. A long vertical band divides the remainder of the lid into two parts. This would in most cases be inscribed with an offering prayer, but here has been left blank. Three types of feathers can be distinguished on the body: short horizontal feathers flanking the vertical band, representing the body feathers of a bird (which could be a falcon, vulture, or hawk); vertical "tail" feathers just below; and two concentric ovals of longer feathers that fan out, creating the effect of wings.
There are a number of theories about the meaning of the feather pattern. One suggestion is that they represent a feathered corselet worn by the king at his coronation. Another is that these feathers associate the deceased with his or her
ba,
an aspect of the person that could take the form of a human-headed bird. Related to this is a possible association with "Coffin Text" 335, a spell often seen on the lids of rectangular Middle Kingdom coffins. In this text, the
ba
of Re, here identified as the son of Osiris, unites with the
ba
of his father to guarantee his rebirth. On the foot of the lid are two
djed
pillars, symbols of Osiris, flanking a
tit
knot, associated with his sister-wife Isis.
The exterior of the box is painted black; the interiors of both lid and box were left unpainted. The coffin was carved out of a log. A mass of oily linen was found inside, at the foot end.
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40141.txt | Necklace with Three Tortoise-Shaped Pendants
Indonesia (Java)
8th–early 10th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 247
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559877.txt | Scarab Inscribed with the Throne Name of Thutmose III
New Kingdom
ca. 1479–1458 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 116
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4640.txt | Knob
Reading Artistic Glass Works
American
1884–86
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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699433.txt | Terracotta rim fragment of a kylix (drinking cup)
Greek, Attic
mid-5th century BCE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 157
Exterior, part of circumscribed palmette; standing, wreathed satyr, with arms extended; right hand and wrist of a second figure
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16307.txt | Tall Clock
Various artists/makers
1805–10
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 719
Over nine-feet-tall, this majestic clock is among the finest and most aesthetically significant examples produced in North America during the Federal period (1790–1825). The manufacture of such pieces was a joint venture between the clockmaker, the cabinetmaker whom he employed to furnish the case, and the patron. In this instance we are able to identify with precision only the man responsible for the works, James Doull of Charlestown, Massachusetts, whose name is painted on the appropriately oversized thirteen-inch dial. The brilliantly veneered and inlaid case, although unsigned, is quite likely by Thomas Seymour (1771–1848) of Boston, whose signature-style lunette inlays of shaded maple border the door and the lower part of the case; they are also used to face the plinths below the brass finials and the reeded and richly carved, engaged quarter columns of curled maple. The clock dial depicts charmingly naive versions of the personifications of the four seasons—standard motifs on imported English painted dials of the period—and a portrait in the tympanum of a young girl in an idealized landscape. These images may be by John Penniman (active 1806–28), an artist documented as having decorated dials for the renowned Willard family of clockmakers in nearby Roxbury and Grafton.
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444832.txt | Rock Crystal Box
18th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 463
This intimately-sized container, carved from rock crystal, has gold inlay and is inset with rubies. While the original use of this object remains unknown, a similar piece in the collection, made in the same technique but without the hinge, was likely used as a perfume or lime container. Small precious objects were highly valued in Mughal court culture, as they were exchanged as gifts between nobles.
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567999.txt | Tiles and ornaments from the palace of Ramesses II
New Kingdom, Ramesside
ca. 1279–1213 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 122
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472358.txt | Column Base with Shaft
European or American (?)
20th century
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 03
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2231.txt | Purple marble glass compote
Challinor, Taylor and Company
American
1870–90
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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546943.txt | Choker of Gold Rings
Second Intermediate Period–Early New Kingdom
ca. 1635–1458 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 114
Chokers like this one are uncommon and seem to come from around Thebes; the earliest example is from a Dynasty 11 (ca. 2040 B.C.) burial. By the beginning of Dynasty 18, they were worn in multiple strings. These short necklaces are often referred to as shebiu, even though they do not resemble the traditional necklaces of lentoid beads called shebiu collars that the king awarded courtiers. Furthermore, several examples come from female burials and there is no evidence that women were ever awarded shebiu collars in early Dynasty 18.
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902222.txt | The Lay Buddhist Vimalakirti
Painting by
Yiran Xingrong (Itsunen Shōyū)
Japanese
Inscription by
Jifei Ruyi (Sokuhi Nyoitsu)
Japanese
1665
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 229
The enlightened lay practitioner Vimalakirti is said to have lived in the ancient city of Vaishali, in present-day India, during the time of the Buddha (sixth or fifth century BCE). He is renowned for his debate with Manjushri (Japanese: Monjū), the bodhisattva of wisdom. Here, Yiran Xingrong, the abbot of Kōfukuji monastery in Nagasaki, portrayed the sage Vimalakirti as if divine. At left, the Ōbaku monk Jifei Ruyi brushed an inscription that reads:
毘耶城裏逢師利 一塵清風洗白雲
In the city of Vaishali, he [Vimalakirti] meets with Manjushri [and says]:
“Within a speck of dust, the untainted breeze purifies the white clouds.”
—Trans. Tim T. Zhang
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559863.txt | Scarabs from Hatshepsut Foundation Deposits
New Kingdom
ca. 1479–1458 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 116
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197123.txt | Adoration of the Shepherds
Enameler
Master K.I.P.
French
Composition after a medal by
Valerio Belli (Il Vicentino)
mid-16th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 544
A number of midcentury Limoges enamel painters were exquisite copyists. Some drew directly on Italian precedents, as in this case: a bronze medal by Valerio Belli (ca. 1468–1546) provided the source for the scene.
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249181.txt | Ivory furniture attachment
Roman
early 1st century CE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 166
These reliefs once decorated a dining couch. They would have been attached to the two ends of the fulcrum (headrest), with the head of Cupid in a roundel at the lower end and the duck’s head, with a glass insert for the eye, forming the curving upper end.
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16313.txt | Beaker
John Burt Lyng
American
1761–85
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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576658.txt | Vessel fragment
New Kingdom
ca. 1390–1352 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 120
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2225.txt | Compote
Adams and Company
American
1870–90
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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561324.txt | Fragment of a Canopic Chest of Queen Tiya
New Kingdom
ca. 1427–1390 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 122
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42742.txt | Wardrobe
China
16th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 218
The closet as we know it did not exist in China. Instead, capacious wardrobes like this one were used for storage. The lower compartments were for clothing and bedding, the upper one for hats.
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555081.txt | Shabti of Petosiris, son of Djedhor
Late Period–Ptolemaic Period
ca. 360–300 BC
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
This small funerary figure (shabti) comes from the tomb of the Djedhor family, which contained the burials of Djedhor, his wife Nebtaihet, and their three sons. Petosiris, the owner of this shabti, was in one of the vaulted chambers along with his two brothers. The three coffins had been covered with sand, and the inhabitants’ canopic chests had been placed on top. Three of Petosiris’s three hundred and eighty-five shabtis were in his coffin and the rest were scattered over the sand.
All of Petosiris’s shabtis are mummiform, and hold agricultural tools (a distinctively curved pick in the left hand, a hoe in the right, and a basket, held by a rope in the right hand, over one shoulder). Most were uninscribed, but thirty-six (for example,
02.4.110
bore his name, titles, and the name of his father Djedhor, along with lines from Spell 6 of the "Book of the Dead." This text promised that the shabti would carry out manual labor on behalf of the deceased in the afterlife.
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437610.txt | Portrait of a Man
Andrea del Sarto (Andrea d'Agnolo)
Italian
1528–29
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 612
This is probably the "natural seeming and very beautiful" portrait of a canon from Pisa Cathedral that Giorgio Vasari describes in his biography of Andrea. The canon was a close friend of the artist during his last years and helped him to secure his last commissions. Holding tightly to a small prayer book, or book of hours, the sitter steadies his gaze on the viewer. Andrea was the leading painter in early sixteenth-century Florence, known for his engaging naturalism and technical brilliance. The portrait was painted not long before he died of the plague in 1530.
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6043.txt | Plate
British
ca. 1800
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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44333.txt | Tripod Cauldron (Ding)
China
Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–9 CE)
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 207
Instead of being glazed, some tomb pottery was decorated with pigments applied after firing to mimic the form and decor of vessels made of more precious materials such as lacquer or bronze.
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460748.txt | Footed bowl
Italian (Venice)
ca. 1500–1525
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 954
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193345.txt | The Prophet Isaiah
Valentin Bousch
French
1533
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 502
This window comes from a series of seven windows made for the choir of the Benedictine priory church of Saint-Firmin in Flavigny-sur-Moselle in the Lorraine region of France. The windows had been commissioned by the prior, Wary de Lucy (1510–1557) from Valentin Bousch, a glass painter in Metz who had already worked on a number of important projects including Metz cathedral. Bousch was occupied by the Flavigny-sur-Moselle project in the early 1530s. Three of the extant monumental windows from the series each bear a date (1531, 1532 and 1533). Bousch was one of the most significant master glaziers in north-eastern France in the sixteenth century and has long been recognized as an important participant in the stylistic and technical developments of the Northern Renaissance.
Together, the windows presented a Biblical narrative reflecting the story of humanity, starting with the Creation and Fall of Man (now in a private collection, Langley, British Columbia), then consecutively depicting the Deluge (MMA 17.40.2a–r), Moses presenting the tablets of Law (MMA 17.40.1a–r), the Nativity or Annunciation at the east end (lost), the Crucifixion (Saint Joseph's church, Stockbridge, Mass.), the Resurrection or the Supper at Emmaus (lost) and, finally, the Last Judgement (lost).
This medallion, together with the medallion of Moses (MMA 17.40.4) and the two medallions with the Craincourt and Savigny arms (MMA 17.40.5, .6), was originally part of the window from the set depicting the Creation and Fall of Man (now in a private collection, Langley, British Columbia), inscribed with the date 1533; a drawing in Nancy, Bibliothèque municipale (Fonds Abel, carton 152), records the complete window intact in the priory church of Saint-Firmin before it was sold.
In these windows, Valentin Bousch rejected traditional compartmentalization, instead treating each composition like an enormous painted or carved retable, with trompe l'œil architectural frames. Brilliant hues of colored glass are combined with painted areas of grisaille and silver-stain on clear glass. The windows provide an early example of daring virtuoso glass-cutting to achieve sharp and sinuous contours. As a group, the windows are remarkable because of their nuanced modeling, their vitality of composition, lifelike features and the contrast of exquisite landscape details (like those in the Moses window) with dramatic dynamism (most skilful in the Deluge window).
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204081.txt | Teapot
Factory
Worcester factory
British
ca. 1753
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 510
This Worcester teapot features an Asian-inspired chinoiserie scene, and scrolling molded decoration in the European rococo style. The blending of chinoiserie with rococo was not uncommon for mid-18th century British porcelain as both styles were characterized by a sense of fantasy and asymmetry.
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467741.txt | Plaque with Christ in Majesty and the Four Evangelists
Ottonian
1000–1100
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 304
The evangelists write their Gospels here with the aid of their characteristic symbols. An ox literally open’s Luke’s eyes to receive divine inspiration, while Mark’s lion seems to be speaking to the author. This plaque, which probably was affixed to the cover of an Ottonian Gospel book, now decorates the cover of a late fifteenth-century Gospel lectionary.
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253867.txt | Black glass ring stone
Roman
ca. 1st century BCE–3rd century CE
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 171
Aphrodite and Eros riding on a hippocamp.
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553396.txt | Scarab with a Kneeling Figure Before an Obelisk
Third Intermediate Period ?
ca. 1070–664 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
The underside of the scarab shows a kneeling figure raising both hands in a gesture of adoration. Between his arms and in front of him are two signs of life (ankh). The figure faces an obelisk, expressing his adoration for the sun go
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306682.txt | Borderie. Raoul. 18 ans, né à Castelsarazin (Tarn & Garonne). Peintre en bâtiment. Anarchiste. 1/3/94.
Alphonse Bertillon
French
1894
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 851
Born into a distinguished family of scientists and statisticians, Bertillon began his career as a clerk in the Identification Bureau of the Paris Prefecture of Police in 1879. Tasked with maintaining reliable police records of offenders, he developed the first modern system of police identification. The system, which became known as Bertillonage, had three components: anthropometric measurement, precise verbal description of the prisoner’s physical characteristics, and standardized photographs of the face.
In the early 1890s Paris was subject to a wave of bombings and assassination attempts carried out by anarchist proponents of "propaganda of the deed." One of Bertillon’s greatest successes came in March 1892, when his system of identification led to the arrest of an anarchist bomber who went by the name Ravachol (2005.100.375.348). The publicity surrounding the case earned Bertillon the Legion of Honor and encouraged police departments around the world to adopt his anthropometric system.
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9416.txt | Vase
Designed by
Louis C. Tiffany
American
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company
American
1893–96
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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461330.txt | Aquamanile in the Form of a Griffin
German, Nuremberg
ca. 1425–50
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 953
This magnificent aquamanile in the form of a griffin with (separately cast) outstretched wings can be grouped stylistically with the unicorn (64.101.1493) and a few other examples that were probably produced by the same Nuremberg workshop in the second quarter of the fifteenth century. The aquamanile was filled through a hole between the ears, and water was poured from the spigot in the chest, likely a rare surviving original element.
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6725.txt | Porringer
Samuel Vernon
American
1700–1730
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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575437.txt | Menat fragment
New Kingdom
ca. 1479–1458 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 117
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471123.txt | Roundel with Christ as Savior of the World
South Netherlandish
1520–30
On view at The Met Cloisters in
Gallery 10
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232255.txt | Armchair seat
Various artists/makers
1754–56
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 525
This tapestry panel is part of a set of twelve armchairs and two settees ordered in Paris in 1753 by Baron Johann Ernst Bernstorff, Danish ambassador to the court of Versailles between 1744 and 1751. After returning to Denmark, Bernstorff commissioned this seat furniture for the tapestry room of his new residence in Copenhagen that was hung with four wall tapestries of the Amours des Dieux series woven at the Beauvais Manufactory. The tapestry covers are woven with animal and bird subjects after designs by the painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755). For a fuller description of the entire set, see, e.g., MMA 35.145.1.
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10004.txt | Work Table
American
1800–1810
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 732
The lower drawer of this worktable, or sewing table, is a slide with a frame fitted with a silk bag for holding needlework. These small but often beautifully conceived tables were used in parlors, sitting rooms, and bedrooms. In the early nineteenth century, ornamental painting was part of the curriculum of girls’ schools, and the skill frequently extended to the decoration of light-wood tables and boxes. A New England schoolgirl probably executed this example’s painted decoration of classical draped figures, festooned leaves, and entwined vines.
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2543.txt | Covered Toilet Box
United States Pottery Company
American
1849–58
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 774
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551581.txt | Inlay, wing from a winged sun or falcon
Ptolemaic Period–Roman Period
200 BC–100 AD
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 134
Monochrome and mosaic glass sections have been adhered to a background to form this elaborately patterned wing.
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560984.txt | Scarab Base with Incised Lion and Cobra
Late Period
664–525 B.C.
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
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4132.txt | Goblet
Anthony Rasch
American
ca. 1815
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 733
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50420.txt | Circular Ear Ornaments with Curving Appendages
Indonesia (Java)
8th–early 10th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 247
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435761.txt | Portrait of a Man
Dieric Bouts
Netherlandish
ca. 1470
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 602
Carefully observed details, such as the loose skin beneath the eyes and the creases by the mouth and brows, create an appearance of realism that is characteristic of Bouts’s work. The panel has been cut down on all sides, making it unclear whether this is an independent portrait or a former part of a religious triptych or larger composition. The hat is an unusual feature for a devotional figure with the hands joined in a gesture of prayer. They were painted over the man’s jacket, and with time, this has resulted in a slightly darker appearance.
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577220.txt | Arrow point
Late Period
664–525 BC
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 130
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40633.txt | Vase with lotus scrolls
China
15th–16th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 220
Judging from the pattern style and translucent enamels, especially the dark purple, the central part of this vase was a jar from the second half of the fifteenth century. But the enamel over its trumpet-shaped neck and foot ring has a dull and grayish tone, likely from the late sixteenth century. It is not unusual to see such combination of parts from different periods when cloisonné came to be favored in the antique market. These “fusion” works, like this vase, were often embellished with an apocryphal mark of Jingtai (1450–57), a legendary golden period of Chinese cloisonné.
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464248.txt | Ivory Mirror Case with a Falconing Party
French
ca. 1330–60
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 306
This carved ivory plaque once served as the case for a hand mirror. When joined with its mate, the bayonet mount carved into its interior formed a tight grip with the matching side, providing protection for a delicate mirror made of silvered or mercury-lined glass. In fourteenth century France, ivory mirror cases of this type were made by ivory carvers called pigniers, who also specialized in the creation of luxury hygienic articles like combs and hair picks. Among the most popular products of Gothic ivory carvers, the courtly subject matter, elegant carving, and use of a luxury material such as ivory indicate that mirror cases like this one were intended for aristocratic clients; medieval inventories confirm that these objects frequently belonged to such households.
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38950.txt | Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Northeastern Thailand
second quarter of the 8th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in
Gallery 246
The savior Avalokiteshvara, identified by the seated image of the Buddha Amitabha in his headdress, embodies infinite Buddhist compassion. The cult of ascetic bodhisattvas—observe his simple attire—was particularly powerful in Southeast Asia during the seventh and eighth centuries. This bronze image has a high tin content which would have given it the appearance of silver when newly cast. It was undoubtedly the product of elite royal patronage, yet the region where it was discovered, in northeastern Thailand, remains an historical enigma. It may be linked to a polity referred to as Canasa, with a capital named Canasapura, somewhere in the Khorat Plateau of northeast Thailand. But associating this object with that kingdom is speculative at best. Essentially the polity responsible for this extraordinary high quality and high value object remains unknown.
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#7992. Four-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion
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7992. Four-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion
2603. Four-armed Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion
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