Cycladic Art

The Leonard N. Stern Collection on Loan from the Hellenic Republic

The display of the Leonard N. Stern Collection of Cycladic Art at The Met is the result of a historic 50-year partnership among The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic, and the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens—approved by Greek parliament in 2022. The partnership brings 161 splendid Cycladic works of art acquired by the businessman and philanthropist Leonard Stern over some 40 years to The Met on long-term loan from the Greek government.

As the single most comprehensive private collection of Cycladic art formed outside of Greece, the works include nearly all of the major types of marble figures and vessels from the Early Bronze Age, allowing viewers to explore and appreciate the essential aspects and subtle variations that Cycladic sculptors, with remarkable sensitivity, imbued in their sculptures over the course of more than a thousand years. The presentation offers an extraordinary opportunity to closely examine a large body of little known Cycladic works that have been repatriated to Greece.

The display of the Leonard N. Stern Collection of Cycladic Art at The Met is part of an innovative solution to repatriate the works to Greece while also bringing them to a worldwide audience and fostering international co-operation around the study and appreciation of Early Cycladic art and culture.