Explore Dürer's masterful "psychological self-portrait" and the hidden meanings of the various objects in it.
Location: The Met
Monks and nuns removed candle soot from this painting using urine and lye, but its gold background never tarnished.
The conservator’s eye: Taddeo Gaddi, Saint Julian
Realism, ideal beauty, and military might—explore the evolution of Roman portraits and political imagery.
Rome’s history in four faces at The ...
This exquisite example of a Goryeo Buddhist painting depicts the bodhisattva on his mountain-island abode.
Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara
In the chaos of the 3rd century, can we be sure about the identification of this statue?
Trebonianus Gallus — emperor or athlete? Rethinking ...
Originally a sliding wall, these golden panels use bamboo, a Chinese motif, to illustrate a Japanese poetic trope.
Bamboo in the Four Seasons: painting and ...
This boyish bodhisattva reminds us that through humble bearing, we can spiritually blossom—like a lotus flower.
Jizō Bosatsu
Terrorists overran Palmyra twice despite international cries for protection, sowing irreversible destruction.
Palmyra: the modern destruction of an ancient ...
Feline fangs, rather than human teeth, suggest that this figure is either supernatural or in contact with deities.
Inverse-Face Beaker
Though Picabia borrows from the popular machine aesthetic, nothing about his apparatus is functional.
Francis Picabia, Ideal
Are these little-understood figures representations of diseased people, or an attempt to ward off illness?
Lost History: the terracotta sculpture of Djenne ...
Where do the objects in museums come from? Explore the tension between collectors and the preservation of knowledge.
Looting, collecting, and exhibiting: the Bubon bronzes
This pot stood above a grave, and the female mourners depicted on it tear out their hair in grief.
Terracotta Krater
Look up! This elaborate carving could be seen as one walked into the temple, but only VIPs had access.
Chakalte’, Relief with Enthroned Ruler
This fabulously-dressed mirror-bearer imitates the humans who performed this function in the royal courts.
Mirror-Bearer
During ceremonies, the user of this cup might be invited to share the story depicted here in Maya glyphs.
Vessel with a mythological scene
Does a portrait need to be an accurate visual representation of the subject?
Marsden Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer
This spectacular necklace pairs human hair with a sperm-whale tooth. Chiefs wore it to assert their divine right.
Necklace (Lei Niho Palaoa), Hawai’i
Ignore the Western name—spinning this object opened a channel of communication between ancestral and human realms.
Fly Whisk (Tahiri), Austral Islands
Master carvers produced statues like these when village leaders needed to bring their community back into balance.