A new, lavishly illustrated guidebook called The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture – co-authored by the head of the department of medieval art and a museum educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art – provides in-depth information on highlights of the collection of The Cloisters, which is the only museum in North America devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. (The Cloisters is a branch museum of the Metropolitan Museum.)
This publication is made possible by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
"We are very happy to provide the public with a new guidebook to the Museum's unparalleled holdings of art from the Middle Ages," commented Peter Barnet, the Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, one of the authors of the book. "The beautiful new photography and archival images complement curatorial commentary on 127 of the most important and best-loved works in the collection, among which are a many significant recent acquisitions. The publication is the first completely new book on The Cloisters in more that 25 years." Co-author Nancy Wu, Associate Museum Educator at The Cloisters, continued: "Our intention was to write a book that would be equally suited to the museum visitor who refers to the guide while strolling through the galleries and the student or the enthusiast who may read the book elsewhere."
The 208-page publication provides information about the history of The Cloisters, followed by a chronological survey of the collection. The works are presented in roughly the same historical sequence in which they were originally created in order to help the reader understand the evolving styles and traditions of the Middle Ages, and the historical and political context in which the objects appeared. The Museum's preeminent collection includes works that were created between the early ninth and early 16th century, including the architectural elements from five medieval cloisters that were reassembled at the museum and give it its name; the renowned Unicorn Tapestries, a series of seven South Netherlandish tapestries woven around 1500; an early 15th-century French illuminated Book of Hours, The Belles Heures de Jean, Duc de Berry; the richly carved 12th-century ivory cross attributed to the English abbey of Bury Saint Edmunds; the stone Virgin of the mid-13th century from the choir screen of Strasbourg Cathedral; and the so-called Merode Triptych, representing the Annunciation, by the 15th-century Netherlandish master Robert Campin.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture is available in the Museum's Book Shops for $29.95.
Described as "the crowning achievement of American museology," The Cloisters opened to the public in 1938 in Fort Tryon Park in northern Manhattan. Located in a spectacular four-acre setting overlooking the Hudson River, the museum is dedicated primarily to the art of the Romanesque and Gothic periods. (Additional examples of medieval works from the early medieval and Byzantine periods are housed in the Metropolitan Museum's main building.) Although The Cloisters is particularly known for its architectural sculpture, its collection of more than 5,000 pieces also includes illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, metalwork, enamels, ivories, and paintings.
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May 15, 2006
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