[Copley’s] swift ascent and sustained eminence were the result of an innate ability to handle paint and produce images that eclipsed anything executed by his predecessors in America.

John Singleton Copley was the leading portraitist of the American colonial era. This volume, which accompanies a major exhibition of Copley's work organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, focuses on the paintings, miniatures and pastels which Copley produced before he moved to London in 1774. In four principal essays, a team of experts places Copley's work in historical and social context, and brings new critical methods to bear upon traditional aspects of the study of portraits and portraiture. Among the conclusions are that Copley's portraits helped to shape pre-Revolutionary culture, and that their content was market-driven in a relentlessly consumerist, anglophile society. Four shorter texts treat Copley's use of costumes in his portraits, his achievement as a miniaturist, his pastels, and the frames he used for his work. Catalogue entries on the color-plates detail the sitters' lives, decode the emblematic language that reflected status in colonial society, and reveal the way Copley contrived to enhance his subjects' status. The exhibition with which the book is timed to coincide opens in June 1995 in Boston and in September 1995 in New York, and travels subsequently to Houston and Milwaukee.

Although many Roman sculptures are purely Roman in their conception, others are carefully measured, exact copies of Greek statues, or variants of Greek prototypes adapted to the taste of the Roman patron.

A process by which chemicals are used to purposefully induce the formation of a thin colored layer on the surface of metal, referred to as chemical patination.

In this May 12, 2013 Sunday at the Met program, discover how the introduction of metal production over 6,000 years ago created a "metallurgy revolution" that sparked social change in the southern Levant. Examine elaborate and prestigious metal objects created in this region, including crowns, scepters, and mace heads. Learn more about the first Israeli-Jordanian-American-German international experimental archaeology expedition, led by the speaker, to locate the Copper Age trade route used by the earliest metalworkers in the Holy Land.

Cypriot smiths produced some of the finest bronzework in the eastern Mediterranean, most notably tripods and four-sided stands.

Idealized pairings have been an enduring concern of sculptors across the African continent. This universal theme of duality is now examined in a handsome book that presents African sculptural masterpieces created in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. Drawn from twenty-four sub-Saharan African cultures, including those of the Dogon, Lobi, Baule, Senufo, Yoruba, Chamba, Jukun, Songye, and Sakalava, the sculptures tell much about each culture's beliefs and social ideals. These artistic creations are astonishingly rich and diverse forms of expression. An essay written by Alisa LaGamma discusses thirty works, all of which are illustrated in colour. This book is the catalogue for an exhibition on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This Closer Look focuses on a single work from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a sculpture of a seated couple created by the Dogon people of Mali in West Africa. The goal is to inspire young people and adults to look more closely at works of art—to discover that details can be fascinating and often essential to understanding the meaning of a work of art. This packet may be used as an introduction to looking at and interpreting the Dogon couple, or as a springboard for exploring how it reflects the culture in which it was made. Teachers and students can use these materials in the classroom, but we know that study and preparation are best rewarded by a visit to the Museum.