Location: The Met

Juan de Flandes, Christ Appearing to His Mother, c. 1496, oil on wood, 62.2 x 37.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — a Flemish painter in the court of a Spanish queen

A miraculous appearance for a queen: Juan ...

Juan de Flandes, Marriage at Cana, c. 1500–04, oil on wood panel, 21 x 15.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Jesus changes water into wine in Renaissance Spain

A wedding and a miracle for the ...

Alonso Berruguete, Apostle or Saint, c. 1520s, polychrome and gilded walnut, 103 x 37 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — The Spanish Michelangelo? Looking closely at a figure by Alonso Berruguete

Bringing the figure to life

Dr. Kurt Behrendt speaks about a tangka (Tibetan Buddhist painting) showing Mahakala, Protector of the Tent.

Mahakala, Protector of the Tent, c. 1500

Thumbnail. Fragment of a Floor Mosaic with a Personification of Ktisis, 500–550 C.E. (with modern restoration), marble and glass, 151.1 x 199.7 x 2.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — This Byzantine mosaic shows the personification of the act of generous giving — Ktisis

Byzantine Mosaic of a Personification, Ktisis

Thumbnail. Marble Portrait Bust of a Woman with a Scroll, late 4th–early 5th century C.E., pentelic marble, 53 x 27.5 x 22.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection) — An Early Byzantine sculpture of a woman with a scroll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woman with Scroll

Carlo Crivelli, Madonna and Child, c. 1480, tempera and gold on wood, 37.8 x 25.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — What do a cucumber, a fly, figures in turbans, and ancient reliefs tell us about the Madonna and Child?

Do you speak Renaissance? Carlo Crivelli, Madonna ...

In the late sixteenth century, European publications about the Americas had few illustrations, so printmakers felt free to invent imagery about the peoples and lands across the Atlantic.

Johannes Stradanus and Theodoor Galle, “The Discovery ...

Get to know fifteenth-century Aragonese painting, which draws on Italian and Northern Renaissance influences.

The Renaissance in Spain, The Morata Master

Viewers are often surprised to learn that one of the children is a boy, since both children are dressed alike.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Madame Charpentier and ...

Panel with a Griffin, 1250–1300, made in Greece or the Balkans (possibly), marble, 59.7 x 52.1 x 6.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — A panel with a Griffin (a lion and an eagle — the king of birds and the king of animals — combined).

Byzantine Griffin Panel

Byzantine chalice (The Attarouthi Treasure — Chalice, Silver and gilded silver, 500–650 C.E., The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — A sumptuous silver and gold chalice starring a youthful Christ, a saint slaying a dragon (could it be George?), and more.

A chalice from the Attarouthi Treasure

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 24.45 x 19.37 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art) — Explore Dürer's masterful "psychological self-portrait" and the hidden meanings of the various objects in it.

Decoding art: Dürer’s Melencolia I

Is this a painting or a relief sculpture? Unclear. Whatever it is, Kiefer’s landscape is falling apart.

Anselm Kiefer, Bohemia Lies by the Sea

Taddeo Gaddi, Saint Julian, 1340s, tempera on wood, gold ground, 54 x 36.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — 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 ...

Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara, first half of the 14th century, ink and color on silk, image 114.5 x 55.6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — This exquisite example of a Goryeo Buddhist painting depicts the bodhisattva on his mountain-island abode.

Water-Moon Avalokiteśvara

Bronze statue of the emperor Trebonianus Gallus, 251-53 C.E., bronze, 241.3 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — In the chaos of the 3rd century, can we be sure about the identification of this statue?

Trebonianus Gallus — emperor or athlete? Rethinking ...

Bamboo in the Four Seasons, attributed to Tosa Mistunobu, late 15th to early 16th century (Muromachi period), Japan, ink, color and gold leaf on paper, each screen 157 x 360 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — 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 ...

izō Bosatsu, late 12th to mid-13th century, Kamakura period, Japan, wood with lacquer, gold leaf, cutout gold foil decoration, and color, 181.6 x 72.4 x 57.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — This boyish bodhisattva reminds us that through humble bearing, we can spiritually blossom—like a lotus flower.

Jizō Bosatsu