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Search for the Unicorn

The exhibition is made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund and the Quinque Foundation.

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Sunday at the Met: How the Cloisters Came to Be

Program information

Timothy B. Husband outlines the foundation of The Cloisters, which was made possible by key personalities that included John D. Rockefeller Jr. and George Barnard.

Recorded May 19, 2013

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Search for the Unicorn: An Exhibition in Honor of The Cloisters' 75th Anniversary.

Search for the Unicorn

An Exhibition in Honor of The Cloisters' 75th Anniversary

May 15, 2013–August 18, 2013

The Cloisters

Given by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in time for the opening of The Cloisters in 1938, the Unicorn Tapestries are its best-known masterpieces; yet, seventy-five years later, their history and meaning remain elusive. They have been seen both as complicated metaphors for Christ and as emblems of matrimony, and they are beloved as quaint indications of medieval notions about the natural world. This exhibition of some forty works of art drawn from the collections of the Metropolitan, sister institutions, and private collections invites audiences to see the Unicorn Tapestries anew, as the finest expression of a subject widely treated across cultures, and in both European art and science, from the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance.

More about the Exhibition