The Metropolitan Museum of Art first opened on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City. John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum, served as its first President, and the publisher George Palmer Putnam came on board as its founding Superintendent. Under their guidance, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations were temporary; after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone "mausoleum" designed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould.[1] The Met has remained in this location ever since, and the original structure is still part of its current building. A host of additions over the years, including the distinctive Beaux-Arts facade, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1926, have continued to expand the museum's physical structure. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.

collection seeded the museum, served as its first President, and the publisher George Palmer Putnam came on board as its founding Superintendent. Under their guidance, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations were temporary; after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone "mausoleum" designed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould.[1] The Met has remained in this location ever since, and the original structure is still part of its current building. A host of additions over the years, including the distinctive Beaux-Arts facade, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and completed in 1926, have continued to expand the museum's physical structure. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile long and occupies more than two million square feet, more than 20 times the size of the original 1880 building.

The 50,000 objects in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts constitute a comprehensive and important historical collection, one of the Metropolitan Museum's largest, reflecting the development of a number of art forms in the major Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The department's holdings cover the following areas: sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also collected by the department.
Distinguished works of Italian Renaissance and eighteenth-century French sculpture abound in a series of gallery spaces, ranging from the soaring and sunlit Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court to beautifully appointed period rooms. Among the department's best-known masterpieces in marble are Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Bacchanal and Houdon's portrait of his infant daughter, Sabine. From the nineteenth century there is an extensive collection of sculptures by Rodin and Degas. Displays of furniture and smaller objects provide a lavish and comprehensive survey of styles in the decorative arts, documenting the achievements of master craftsmen across Europe in this era.
The Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts has evolved from one that was established in 1907, during the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan, as a repository of decorative art, undifferentiated as to time or geography. At that point, thirty-five years of acquiring in the field had already produced a fine collection. A similarly ecumenical Department of Sculpture had been established even earlier. As the pace of acquisition accelerated and the holdings multiplied over the decades, there were several departmental partitions and consolidations involving these objects. The department's present scope was established in 1935, and in 1978 it assumed its current title.

Major areas of the department's collection include Italian and French sculpture in marble, bronze, and terracotta; French and English furniture and silver; Italian bronzes, goldsmithwork, maiolica, and glass; French and German porcelain; and a comprehensive collection of European textiles, including Flemish and French tapestries (see Antonio Ratti Textile Center). Architectural settings and period rooms range from a sixteenth-century patio from the castle of Vйlez Blanco, Spain; to the Wrightsman Galleries, which display splendid examples of French furniture and several salons from grand eighteenth-century French houses; to the early Renaissance studiolo, or small, private study, from the palace of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, in Gubbio, Italy (installed at the Metropolitan in 1996 after ten years of intensive conservation). Five galleries are devoted to the eighteenth-century decorative arts of Central Europe, and the Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries feature nearly eight hundred examples of English furniture and decorative arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a suite of ten galleries and period rooms. Among these is Robert Adam's Tapestry Room from Croome Court, near Worcester, England.

Designed as a classical French garden and opened in 1990, the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court serves as a framework for the presentation of large Italian and French sculptures, originally intended for the outdoors, dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The arcaded south wall of the court was inspired by the Orangerie of Versailles, and the north wall incorporates the Museum's 1888 Italianate facade and carriage entrance of granite and red brick. Beyond the Petrie Court, a series of galleries in the Henry R. Kravis Wing offer visitors an overview of the progression of artistic styles from the Renaissance through the early twentieth century. In the four Florence Gould Galleries, tapestries, decorative arts, and furniture from various countries are presented in telling juxtapositions, starting with the flourishing of the late Baroque style around 1700 and finishing with the spreading of the arts of the French Empire about 1800.

Further on, three large galleries named for Iris and B. Gerald Cantor are devoted to a display of nineteenth-century sculpture and decorative arts, regardless of nationalities. Spanning the period from the Restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1815 to the flowering of Art Nouveau at the turn of the century, many of these works were acquired recently in an effort to enlarge the spectrum of the department's holdings and illustrate the multiplicity of styles that characterized nineteenth-century Europe.

In addition to the wonderfully variegated permanent installations described above—in which visitors are transported, in their imaginations, into spaces and settings from many different points in history—the department also organizes special exhibitions based on its own collection and other public and private collections around the world.

development of a number of art forms in the major Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The department's holdings cover the following areas: sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also collected by the department.
Distinguished works of Italian Renaissance and eighteenth-century French sculpture abound in a series of gallery spaces, ranging from the soaring and sunlit Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court to beautifully appointed period rooms. Among the department's best-known masterpieces in marble are Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Bacchanal and Houdon's portrait of his infant daughter, Sabine. From the nineteenth century there is an extensive collection of sculptures by Rodin and Degas. Displays of furniture and smaller objects provide a lavish and comprehensive survey of styles in the decorative arts, documenting the achievements of master craftsmen across Europe in this era.
The Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts has evolved from one that was established in 1907, during the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan, as a repository of decorative art, undifferentiated as to time or geography. At that point, thirty-five years of acquiring in the field had already produced a fine collection. A similarly ecumenical Department of Sculpture had been established even earlier. As the pace of acquisition accelerated and the holdings multiplied over the decades, there were several departmental partitions and consolidations involving these objects. The department's present scope was established in 1935, and in 1978 it assumed its current title.

Major areas of the department's collection include Italian and French sculpture in marble, bronze, and terracotta; French and English furniture and silver; Italian bronzes, goldsmithwork, maiolica, and glass; French and German porcelain; and a comprehensive collection of European textiles, including Flemish and French tapestries (see Antonio Ratti Textile Center). Architectural settings and period rooms range from a sixteenth-century patio from the castle of Vйlez Blanco, Spain; to the Wrightsman Galleries, which display splendid examples of French furniture and several salons from grand eighteenth-century French houses; to the early Renaissance studiolo, or small, private study, from the palace of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, in Gubbio, Italy (installed at the Metropolitan in 1996 after ten years of intensive conservation). Five galleries are devoted to the eighteenth-century decorative arts of Central Europe, and the Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries feature nearly eight hundred examples of English furniture and decorative arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a suite of ten galleries and period rooms. Among these is Robert Adam's Tapestry Room from Croome Court, near Worcester, England.

Designed as a classical French garden and opened in 1990, the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court serves as a framework for the presentation of large Italian and French sculptures, originally intended for the outdoors, dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The arcaded south wall of the court was inspired by the Orangerie of Versailles, and the north wall incorporates the Museum's 1888 Italianate facade and carriage entrance of granite and red brick. Beyond the Petrie Court, a series of galleries in the Henry R. Kravis Wing offer visitors an overview of the progression of artistic styles from the Renaissance through the early twentieth century. In the four Florence Gould Galleries, tapestries, decorative arts, and furniture from various countries are presented in telling juxtapositions, starting with the flourishing of the late Baroque style around 1700 and finishing with the spreading of the arts of the French Empire about 1800.

Further on, three large galleries named for Iris and B. Gerald Cantor are devoted to a display of nineteenth-century sculpture and decorative arts, regardless of nationalities. Spanning the period from the Restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in 1815 to the flowering of Art Nouveau at the turn of the century, many of these works were acquired recently in an effort to enlarge the spectrum of the department's holdings and illustrate the multiplicity of styles that characterized nineteenth-century Europe.

In addition to the wonderfully variegated permanent installations described above—in which visitors are transported, in their imaginations, into spaces and settings from many different points in history—the department also organizes special exhibitions based on its own collection and other public and private collections around the world.

One of the Museum's loveliest and most popular spaces, the Charles Engelhard Court is a glassed-in garden featuring large-scale American sculptures, leaded-glass windows, and other architectural elements.

elements.

The collection of Greek and Roman art at the Metropolitan Museum—more than 35,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312—includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The areas represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: much of Asia Minor on the periphery of Greece was settled by Greeks; Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized in the course of its long history; and Greek colonies were established around much of the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the political expansion of Rome. The department also exhibits the pre-Greek art of Greece and the pre-Roman art of Italy.

Today, the objects overseen by the department range from small engraved gemstones to black-figure and red-figure painted vases to over-life-size statues and reflect virtually all of the materials in which ancient artists and craftsmen worked: marble, limestone, terracotta, bronze, gold, silver, and glass, as well as such rarer substances as ivory and bone, iron, lead, amber, and wood. Fifty highlights from the Department of Greek and Roman Art are presented online, organized first by geographical region and, within regions, chronologically. Regions are also presented in chronological order according to when the ancient civilization flourished in that region.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's very first accessioned object was a Roman sarcophagus from Tarsus, donated in 1870. Among the Museum's first directors were the classical archaeologists General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, who held the post from 1879 to 1904, and Edward Robinson, from 1910 to 1931. After 1905 the Museum was purchasing actively in the field with income from the Rogers Fund, established in 1901 by bequest of Jacob S. Rogers, a manufacturer of locomotives. Moreover, the laws of partage were still in effect, so that the Museum was permitted to share the discoveries made with local departments of antiquities at its excavations around the Mediterranean, such as at Sardis. Despite these propitious conditions for the acquisition of ancient art, and the large number of objects that were indeed acquired, an independent Department of Classical Art was not established formally until 1909; in 1925 it was renamed the Department of Greek and Roman Art.

The Metropolitan's galleries reveal classical art in all of its complexity and resonance. The strengths of the collection include painted Greek vases, Greek grave reliefs, Cypriot sculpture, marble and bronze Roman portrait busts, and wall paintings from two villas on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, one in Boscoreale and the other in Boscotrecase. The department's holdings in glass and silver are among the finest in the world, and the collection of archaic Attic sculpture is second only to that in Athens.

Special exhibitions based on the Metropolitan's collection of Greek and Roman art, supplemented with loans from other museums around the world, are another important part of the department's mission.

Currently, the Museum is in the midst of a three-phase master plan to renovate the exhibition spaces for Greek and Roman art and reinstall the entire collection. The first phase was achieved in June 1996 with the opening of The Robert and Renйe Belfer Court for prehistoric and early Greek art. The second phase, seven galleries for Greek art of the archaic and classical periods (sixth through fourth century B.C.), opened in April 1999. With objects arranged in a new contextual display combining works of many media, the New Greek Galleries embrace such themes as religion, funerary customs, civic life, and athletics, in magnificent, newly renovated Beaux-Arts spaces created for the collection between 1912 and 1917 by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. The grand, barrel-vaulted gallery in the center of the installation—now known as the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery—is one of New York City's great interior spaces, flooded with natural light and ideal for exhibiting large-scale marble sculpture, bronzes, and vases.

The department's extensive collection of Cypriot art returned to view in April 2000 in newly renovated galleries on the second floor. When completed, the Greek and Roman master plan will increase the overall exhibition space from 26,700 to 60,000 square feet, so that the majority of the department's extensive holdings will be on view, either in chronologically organized galleries or in an extensive study-storage collection. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2007.

Christianity in A.D. 312—includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The areas represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: much of Asia Minor on the periphery of Greece was settled by Greeks; Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized in the course of its long history; and Greek colonies were established around much of the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the political expansion of Rome. The department also exhibits the pre-Greek art of Greece and the pre-Roman art of Italy.

Today, the objects overseen by the department range from small engraved gemstones to black-figure and red-figure painted vases to over-life-size statues and reflect virtually all of the materials in which ancient artists and craftsmen worked: marble, limestone, terracotta, bronze, gold, silver, and glass, as well as such rarer substances as ivory and bone, iron, lead, amber, and wood. Fifty highlights from the Department of Greek and Roman Art are presented online, organized first by geographical region and, within regions, chronologically. Regions are also presented in chronological order according to when the ancient civilization flourished in that region.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's very first accessioned object was a Roman sarcophagus from Tarsus, donated in 1870. Among the Museum's first directors were the classical archaeologists General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, who held the post from 1879 to 1904, and Edward Robinson, from 1910 to 1931. After 1905 the Museum was purchasing actively in the field with income from the Rogers Fund, established in 1901 by bequest of Jacob S. Rogers, a manufacturer of locomotives. Moreover, the laws of partage were still in effect, so that the Museum was permitted to share the discoveries made with local departments of antiquities at its excavations around the Mediterranean, such as at Sardis. Despite these propitious conditions for the acquisition of ancient art, and the large number of objects that were indeed acquired, an independent Department of Classical Art was not established formally until 1909; in 1925 it was renamed the Department of Greek and Roman Art.

The Metropolitan's galleries reveal classical art in all of its complexity and resonance. The strengths of the collection include painted Greek vases, Greek grave reliefs, Cypriot sculpture, marble and bronze Roman portrait busts, and wall paintings from two villas on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, one in Boscoreale and the other in Boscotrecase. The department's holdings in glass and silver are among the finest in the world, and the collection of archaic Attic sculpture is second only to that in Athens.

Special exhibitions based on the Metropolitan's collection of Greek and Roman art, supplemented with loans from other museums around the world, are another important part of the department's mission.

Currently, the Museum is in the midst of a three-phase master plan to renovate the exhibition spaces for Greek and Roman art and reinstall the entire collection. The first phase was achieved in June 1996 with the opening of The Robert and Renйe Belfer Court for prehistoric and early Greek art. The second phase, seven galleries for Greek art of the archaic and classical periods (sixth through fourth century B.C.), opened in April 1999. With objects arranged in a new contextual display combining works of many media, the New Greek Galleries embrace such themes as religion, funerary customs, civic life, and athletics, in magnificent, newly renovated Beaux-Arts spaces created for the collection between 1912 and 1917 by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White. The grand, barrel-vaulted gallery in the center of the installation—now known as the Mary and Michael Jaharis Gallery—is one of New York City's great interior spaces, flooded with natural light and ideal for exhibiting large-scale marble sculpture, bronzes, and vases.

The department's extensive collection of Cypriot art returned to view in April 2000 in newly renovated galleries on the second floor. When completed, the Greek and Roman master plan will increase the overall exhibition space from 26,700 to 60,000 square feet, so that the majority of the department's extensive holdings will be on view, either in chronologically organized galleries or in an extensive study-storage collection. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2007.

Cyprus was famous in antiquity for its copper resources. In fact the very word copper is derived from the Greek name for the island, Kupros. Cypriots first worked copper in the fourth millennium B.C., fashioning tools from native deposits of pure copper, which at that time could still be found in places on the surface of the earth. The discovery of rich copper-bearing ores on the north slope of the Troodos Mountains led to the mining of Cyprus' rich mineral resources in the Bronze Age at sites such as Ambelikou-Aletri. Tin, which is mixed together with copper to make bronze, typically at a ratio of 1:10, had to be imported. True tin bronzes appear to have been made on Cyprus as early as the beginning of the second millennium B.C. In the nineteenth century B.C., the island is mentioned for the first time in Near Eastern records as a copper-producing country, under the name "Alasia," and it continued to be an important source of copper for the Near East and Egypt throughout most of the second millennium B.C. Scholars, however, are in disagreement as to the exact meaning of "Alasia": whether it refers to a specific site on Cyprus, such Enkomi or Alassa, or to the island itself, or, less probably, to another geographic location.

Cypriot copper and bronze working was relatively modest in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, and metalsmiths manufactured a limited range of types, including tools, weapons, and personal objects such as pins and razors. Excavations have revealed increasing metallurgical activity at settlement sites in the Late Bronze Age. Nearly all of the major centers, including Enkomi, Kition, Hala Sultan Tekke, Palaeopaphos, and Maroni, provide evidence of copper smelting, as do smaller settlements, including Alassa and Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios.

Metalwork of the first part of the Late Bronze Age continued to follow earlier conservative traditions. Despite the widespread evidence for metallurgical activity, there are few examples of actual bronzework from Cyprus between ca. 1450 B.C. until the late thirteenth century B.C., the Late Cypriot II period, because the metal was valuable and metal objects were melted down in subsequent periods for reuse. However, the recent discovery of the Ulu Burun shipwreck, which was carrying over ten tons of Cypriot copper ingots when it sank off the southwestern coast of Turkey in the late fourteenth century B.C., vividly demonstrates that Cyprus was a major producer of copper for international trade. Toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, the Cypriot metalworking industry was transformed under foreign influence. Cypriot smiths produced some of the finest bronzework in the eastern Mediterranean, most notably tripods and four-sided stands.

fashioning tools from native deposits of pure copper, which at that time could still be found in places on the surface of the earth. The discovery of rich copper-bearing ores on the north slope of the Troodos Mountains led to the mining of Cyprus' rich mineral resources in the Bronze Age at sites such as Ambelikou-Aletri. Tin, which is mixed together with copper to make bronze, typically at a ratio of 1:10, had to be imported. True tin bronzes appear to have been made on Cyprus as early as the beginning of the second millennium B.C. In the nineteenth century B.C., the island is mentioned for the first time in Near Eastern records as a copper-producing country, under the name "Alasia," and it continued to be an important source of copper for the Near East and Egypt throughout most of the second millennium B.C. Scholars, however, are in disagreement as to the exact meaning of "Alasia": whether it refers to a specific site on Cyprus, such Enkomi or Alassa, or to the island itself, or, less probably, to another geographic location.

Cypriot copper and bronze working was relatively modest in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages, and metalsmiths manufactured a limited range of types, including tools, weapons, and personal objects such as pins and razors. Excavations have revealed increasing metallurgical activity at settlement sites in the Late Bronze Age. Nearly all of the major centers, including Enkomi, Kition, Hala Sultan Tekke, Palaeopaphos, and Maroni, provide evidence of copper smelting, as do smaller settlements, including Alassa and Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios.

Metalwork of the first part of the Late Bronze Age continued to follow earlier conservative traditions. Despite the widespread evidence for metallurgical activity, there are few examples of actual bronzework from Cyprus between ca. 1450 B.C. until the late thirteenth century B.C., the Late Cypriot II period, because the metal was valuable and metal objects were melted down in subsequent periods for reuse. However, the recent discovery of the Ulu Burun shipwreck, which was carrying over ten tons of Cypriot copper ingots when it sank off the southwestern coast of Turkey in the late fourteenth century B.C., vividly demonstrates that Cyprus was a major producer of copper for international trade. Toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, the Cypriot metalworking industry was transformed under foreign influence. Cypriot smiths produced some of the finest bronzework in the eastern Mediterranean, most notably tripods and four-sided stands.

The collection of ancient Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum ranks among the finest outside Cairo. It consists of approximately 36,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (ca. 300,000 B.C.–4th century A.D.). More than half of the collection is derived from the Museum's thirty-five years of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing public interest in the culture of ancient Egypt. Today, virtually the entire collection is on display in thirty-two major galleries and eight study galleries, with objects arranged chronologically. Overall, the holdings reflect the aesthetic values, history, religious beliefs, and daily life of the ancient Egyptians over the entire course of their great civilization.

The Department of Egyptian Art is particularly well known for the Old Kingdom mastaba (offering chapel) of Perneb (ca. 2450 B.C.); a set of Middle Kingdom wooden models from the tomb of Meketre at Thebes (ca. 1990 B.C.); jewelry of Princess Sit-hathor-yunet of Dynasty 12 (ca. 1897–1797 B.C.); royal portrait sculpture of Dynasty 12 (ca. 1991–1783 B.C.); and statuary of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut of Dynasty 18 (ca. 1473–1458 B.C.). The department also exhibits its invaluable collection of watercolor facsimiles, most of which are copies of Theban tomb paintings produced between 1907 and 1937 by members of the Graphic Section of the Museum's Egyptian Expedition.

Highlights from the department are presented online in approximate chronological order, and are identified by dynasty and/or period.

More about the Department and Its Collection


The Department of Egyptian Art was established in 1906 to oversee the Museum's already sizable collection of art from ancient Egypt. The collection had been growing since 1874 thanks to individual gifts from benefactors and acquisition of private collections (such as the Drexel Collection in 1889, the Farman Collection in 1904, and the Ward Collection in 1905), as well as through yearly subscriptions, from 1895 onward, to the Egypt Exploration Fund, a British organization that conducted archaeological excavations in Egypt and donated a share of its finds to subscribing institutions.

Also in 1906, the Museum's Board of Trustees voted to establish an Egyptian Expedition to conduct archaeological excavations at several sites along the Nile. Instrumental in this decision was J. Pierpont Morgan, the Museum's president, who visited the expedition periodically until his death in 1913. At the time, the Egyptian government (through the Egyptian Antiquities Service) was granting foreign institutions the right to excavate with the understanding that the resulting finds would be divided fifty-fifty between the excavators and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Metropolitan Museum was granted concessions for the Middle Kingdom royal cemeteries of Lisht, a site located on the west bank of the Nile approximately thirty miles south of modern Cairo; the Late Dynastic Period temple of Hibis at Kharga Oasis in the western desert; the New Kingdom royal palace at Malkata; and the Middle and New Kingdom cemeteries and temples of Deir el-Bahri in the Theban necropolis opposite modern Luxor. Subsequently, the Egyptian Antiquities Service granted access to other sites as well, among them the important Predynastic cemetery of Hierakonpolis in southern Egypt.

Between 1906 and 1935, the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Expedition conducted fourteen seasons of excavations at Lisht. The site includes the Middle Kingdom pyramid complexes of Amenemhat I, the first king of Dynasty 12, and of his son, Senwosret I; a cemetery of officials from Dynasties 12 and 13; and an important Middle Kingdom settlement site. The early excavation teams were led by noted American Egyptologist Albert M. Lythgoe, the first curator of the Department of Egyptian Art. Lythgoe was assisted by his American colleague, Ambrose Lansing, and by Arthur C. Mace, a British Egyptologist. Also at Lisht was Herbert E. Winlock, a young American who was just beginning his career in Egyptology. Among the most important finds from the site are a ritual figure of wood (ca. 1929–1878 B.C.), one of a pair, the second of which is in Cairo; and burial equipment from the tomb of the Lady Senebtisi. It was while working with Mace in this tomb that Winlock developed the careful archaeological methods that made him one of the greatest excavators in the field of Egyptology.

In 1911, after several seasons at Lisht, Herbert Winlock became the primary director of fieldwork at Thebes. He later succeeded Lythgoe as the head of the Department of Egyptian Art, and eventually served as director of the Museum. Winlock conducted excavations in the Dynasty 18 mud-brick palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata, near the southern end of the vast Theban necropolis, but his principal work was done at the temples and cemeteries in the area of Deir el-Bahri. There, in 1920, he discovered a small, untouched chamber in the tomb of the early Middle Kingdom chancellor Meketre (ca. 1990 B.C.). The chamber contained a set of twenty-four painted wooden models of boats, gardens, offering figures, and scenes of food production that are more detailed than any found before or since. Divided between the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, these models are among the most prized possessions of both collections.

Winlock also discovered hundreds of fragments of the smashed statues that had once embellished the funerary temple of Hatshepsut, the great female pharaoh who ruled during Dynasty 18 (ca. 1473–1458 B.C.). Painstakingly reassembled, these statues are some of the great masterpieces now to be found in New York and Cairo.

Over the years the Department of Egyptian Art has been able to acquire, through purchase and bequest, a number of important private collections, including those of Rev. Chauncey Murch (1910), Theodore M. Davis (1915), J. Pierpont Morgan (1917), the Earl of Carnarvon (1926), and Albert Gallatin (1966). Significant gifts have also come from collectors such as Norbert Schimmel (1985), and major purchases have been made possible by benefactors, including Darius Ogden Mills, Helen Miller Gould, Edward S. Harkness, Jacob S. Rogers, and Lila Acheson Wallace, who also funded the reinstallation of the Egyptian galleries that was completed in 1982.

One of the most popular destinations in the Egyptian galleries, and, indeed, in the Museum as a whole, is the Temple of Dendur. Built about 15 B.C. by the Roman emperor Augustus, who had succeeded Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, the temple was dedicated to the great goddess Isis and to two sons of a local Nubian ruler who had aided the Romans in their wars with the queen of Meroe to the south. Located in Lower Nubia, about fifty miles south of modern Aswan, the temple was dismantled to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser after the building of the Aswan High Dam. It was presented to the United States as a gift from the Egyptian government in recognition of the American contribution to the international campaign to save the ancient Nubian monuments.

In addition to interpreting and caring for the permanent collection of ancient Egyptian art, the staff of the Department of Egyptian Art continues to excavate at the Museum's concessions in Egypt, to conduct research in preparation for publication of objects in the collection, and to organize special exhibitions. While many of these are small thematic exhibitions composed of objects from the Museum's collection, the department also organizes loan exhibitions drawn from collections throughout the world.

dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (ca. 300,000 B.C.–4th century A.D.). More than half of the collection is derived from the Museum's thirty-five years of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing public interest in the culture of ancient Egypt. Today, virtually the entire collection is on display in thirty-two major galleries and eight study galleries, with objects arranged chronologically. Overall, the holdings reflect the aesthetic values, history, religious beliefs, and daily life of the ancient Egyptians over the entire course of their great civilization.

The Department of Egyptian Art is particularly well known for the Old Kingdom mastaba (offering chapel) of Perneb (ca. 2450 B.C.); a set of Middle Kingdom wooden models from the tomb of Meketre at Thebes (ca. 1990 B.C.); jewelry of Princess Sit-hathor-yunet of Dynasty 12 (ca. 1897–1797 B.C.); royal portrait sculpture of Dynasty 12 (ca. 1991–1783 B.C.); and statuary of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut of Dynasty 18 (ca. 1473–1458 B.C.). The department also exhibits its invaluable collection of watercolor facsimiles, most of which are copies of Theban tomb paintings produced between 1907 and 1937 by members of the Graphic Section of the Museum's Egyptian Expedition.

Highlights from the department are presented online in approximate chronological order, and are identified by dynasty and/or period.

More about the Department and Its Collection


The Department of Egyptian Art was established in 1906 to oversee the Museum's already sizable collection of art from ancient Egypt. The collection had been growing since 1874 thanks to individual gifts from benefactors and acquisition of private collections (such as the Drexel Collection in 1889, the Farman Collection in 1904, and the Ward Collection in 1905), as well as through yearly subscriptions, from 1895 onward, to the Egypt Exploration Fund, a British organization that conducted archaeological excavations in Egypt and donated a share of its finds to subscribing institutions.

Also in 1906, the Museum's Board of Trustees voted to establish an Egyptian Expedition to conduct archaeological excavations at several sites along the Nile. Instrumental in this decision was J. Pierpont Morgan, the Museum's president, who visited the expedition periodically until his death in 1913. At the time, the Egyptian government (through the Egyptian Antiquities Service) was granting foreign institutions the right to excavate with the understanding that the resulting finds would be divided fifty-fifty between the excavators and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Metropolitan Museum was granted concessions for the Middle Kingdom royal cemeteries of Lisht, a site located on the west bank of the Nile approximately thirty miles south of modern Cairo; the Late Dynastic Period temple of Hibis at Kharga Oasis in the western desert; the New Kingdom royal palace at Malkata; and the Middle and New Kingdom cemeteries and temples of Deir el-Bahri in the Theban necropolis opposite modern Luxor. Subsequently, the Egyptian Antiquities Service granted access to other sites as well, among them the important Predynastic cemetery of Hierakonpolis in southern Egypt.

Between 1906 and 1935, the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Expedition conducted fourteen seasons of excavations at Lisht. The site includes the Middle Kingdom pyramid complexes of Amenemhat I, the first king of Dynasty 12, and of his son, Senwosret I; a cemetery of officials from Dynasties 12 and 13; and an important Middle Kingdom settlement site. The early excavation teams were led by noted American Egyptologist Albert M. Lythgoe, the first curator of the Department of Egyptian Art. Lythgoe was assisted by his American colleague, Ambrose Lansing, and by Arthur C. Mace, a British Egyptologist. Also at Lisht was Herbert E. Winlock, a young American who was just beginning his career in Egyptology. Among the most important finds from the site are a ritual figure of wood (ca. 1929–1878 B.C.), one of a pair, the second of which is in Cairo; and burial equipment from the tomb of the Lady Senebtisi. It was while working with Mace in this tomb that Winlock developed the careful archaeological methods that made him one of the greatest excavators in the field of Egyptology.

In 1911, after several seasons at Lisht, Herbert Winlock became the primary director of fieldwork at Thebes. He later succeeded Lythgoe as the head of the Department of Egyptian Art, and eventually served as director of the Museum. Winlock conducted excavations in the Dynasty 18 mud-brick palace of Amenhotep III at Malkata, near the southern end of the vast Theban necropolis, but his principal work was done at the temples and cemeteries in the area of Deir el-Bahri. There, in 1920, he discovered a small, untouched chamber in the tomb of the early Middle Kingdom chancellor Meketre (ca. 1990 B.C.). The chamber contained a set of twenty-four painted wooden models of boats, gardens, offering figures, and scenes of food production that are more detailed than any found before or since. Divided between the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, these models are among the most prized possessions of both collections.

Winlock also discovered hundreds of fragments of the smashed statues that had once embellished the funerary temple of Hatshepsut, the great female pharaoh who ruled during Dynasty 18 (ca. 1473–1458 B.C.). Painstakingly reassembled, these statues are some of the great masterpieces now to be found in New York and Cairo.

Over the years the Department of Egyptian Art has been able to acquire, through purchase and bequest, a number of important private collections, including those of Rev. Chauncey Murch (1910), Theodore M. Davis (1915), J. Pierpont Morgan (1917), the Earl of Carnarvon (1926), and Albert Gallatin (1966). Significant gifts have also come from collectors such as Norbert Schimmel (1985), and major purchases have been made possible by benefactors, including Darius Ogden Mills, Helen Miller Gould, Edward S. Harkness, Jacob S. Rogers, and Lila Acheson Wallace, who also funded the reinstallation of the Egyptian galleries that was completed in 1982.

One of the most popular destinations in the Egyptian galleries, and, indeed, in the Museum as a whole, is the Temple of Dendur. Built about 15 B.C. by the Roman emperor Augustus, who had succeeded Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, the temple was dedicated to the great goddess Isis and to two sons of a local Nubian ruler who had aided the Romans in their wars with the queen of Meroe to the south. Located in Lower Nubia, about fifty miles south of modern Aswan, the temple was dismantled to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser after the building of the Aswan High Dam. It was presented to the United States as a gift from the Egyptian government in recognition of the American contribution to the international campaign to save the ancient Nubian monuments.

In addition to interpreting and caring for the permanent collection of ancient Egyptian art, the staff of the Department of Egyptian Art continues to excavate at the Museum's concessions in Egypt, to conduct research in preparation for publication of objects in the collection, and to organize special exhibitions. While many of these are small thematic exhibitions composed of objects from the Museum's collection, the department also organizes loan exhibitions drawn from collections throughout the world.

The meditteranean Sea served as a link between the great civilizations that arose close to its shores.By the third millennium B.C. metals,ivory,and semiprecious stones from as far as Afghanistan reached the Levant,Egypt, and the aegean region.Knowledge of techniques such as glass manufacture and metallurgy traveled from one land to another, as did craftsmen,doctors,and singers.Also widely distributed were perishable foodstuffs,perfumes and possibly opium, and patterned textiles.Luxury goods were brought to foreign courts as tribute or diplomatic gifts, booty, or trade items:and small objects such as seals carved with elaborate figural imagery were carried from place to place.
Ancient texts give a cle to the value of the precious materials and good that were circulated among royal courts.In the Middle Kingdom tale, the pharaoh "sent loaded ships........bearing royal gifts for the Asiatics" who accompanied the Egyptian travveler Sinuhe.The royal archive discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt contained letters written in Akkadian cuneiform in which the pharaoh requested silver, timber,livestock,glass ,and slave gilrs from vassals in the southern Levant, while giving military support and occasional girfts of linen garments, gold vessels,or incense in return.
By the fourteenth century B.C. ,artistic exchange in the eastern Mideterranean region had created international styles for elite objects,many displaying a fusion of the dynamic Aegean animal style with Egyptian and Syrian imagery and compositions.Mediterranean intercultural styles survived into the early first millennium B.C. They are attested by furniture, decorated which exquisite Phoenician and Syrian ivory carvings and much sought after as booty or tribute by the expanding empire of Assyria.

reached the Levant,Egypt, and the aegean region.Knowledge of techniques such as glass manufacture and metallurgy traveled from one land to another, as did craftsmen,doctors,and singers.Also widely distributed were perishable foodstuffs,perfumes and possibly opium, and patterned textiles.Luxury goods were brought to foreign courts as tribute or diplomatic gifts, booty, or trade items:and small objects such as seals carved with elaborate figural imagery were carried from place to place.
Ancient texts give a cle to the value of the precious materials and good that were circulated among royal courts.In the Middle Kingdom tale, the pharaoh "sent loaded ships........bearing royal gifts for the Asiatics" who accompanied the Egyptian travveler Sinuhe.The royal archive discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt contained letters written in Akkadian cuneiform in which the pharaoh requested silver, timber,livestock,glass ,and slave gilrs from vassals in the southern Levant, while giving military support and occasional girfts of linen garments, gold vessels,or incense in return.
By the fourteenth century B.C. ,artistic exchange in the eastern Mideterranean region had created international styles for elite objects,many displaying a fusion of the dynamic Aegean animal style with Egyptian and Syrian imagery and compositions.Mediterranean intercultural styles survived into the early first millennium B.C. They are attested by furniture, decorated which exquisite Phoenician and Syrian ivory carvings and much sought after as booty or tribute by the expanding empire of Assyria.

The collection of armor, edged weapons, and firearms in The Metropolitan Museum of Art ranks with those of the other great armories of the world, in Vienna, Madrid, Dresden, and Paris. It consists of approximately 15,000 objects that range in date from about 400 B.C. to the nineteenth century. Though Western Europe and Japan are the regions most strongly represented—the collection of more than five thousand pieces of Japanese armor and weapons is the finest outside Japan—the geographical range of the collection is extraordinary, with examples from the Near East, the Middle East, India, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and North America. The focus is on outstanding craftsmanship and decoration—that is, items often intended solely for display rather than for actual use, from minute ornamental sword fittings to full suits of armor.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art received its first examples of arms and armor in 1881. Thanks to a substantial group of Japanese arms and armor and a major private collection of European arms and armor, both acquired by purchase in 1904, the Museum's collection quickly achieved international recognition. This led to the establishment of a separate Department of Arms and Armor in 1912, which remains the only one of its kind in the United States.

Elaborate armor and martial accoutrements were for many centuries, and in many parts of the world, among the most essential trappings of high-ranking rulers and warriors. The Department of Arms and Armor thus spans a wide range of cultures, one of the widest in the Museum (arms and armor from ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, the ancient Near East, and Africa, Oceania, and the Americas are exhibited with their respective curatorial departments). Expertly fashioned armor and weapons are closely allied to contemporary nonmilitary design and craftsmanship and thus reflect the art-historical developments of their time, place, and culture of origin. Often embellished with precious metals and jewels, the finest examples proclaimed the wearer's or bearer's social status, wealth, and taste.

The Metropolitan is especially renowned for its Japanese holdings, dating from the fifth to the nineteenth century, and for its European holdings—late-medieval pieces as well as a superb series of tournament and parade armors from the Renaissance. Notable among these are five armors made in the English royal workshops at Greenwich for Tudor courtiers; a magnificent helmet inspired by the Antique that is the masterpiece of Filippo Negroli, one of the finest Milanese armorers of the sixteenth century; and a sumptuous armor covered with representations of foliage, human figures, and grotesques worked in low relief, made for King Henry II of France.

Galleries are also devoted to American arms from the colonial era to the late nineteenth century and to arms from various Islamic cultures, including a distinguished series of decorated armor from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran and Anatolia and jewel-studded weapons from the Ottoman Turkish and Mughal Indian courts.

Always among the Museum's most popular attractions, the Arms and Armor Galleries were renovated and reinstalled in 1991 to display to better effect the outstanding collection of armor and weapons of sculptural and ornamental beauty from around the world. Many objects were cleaned and restored in the course of this refurbishment, notably some late-fifteenth-century German shields, from which as many as five layers of paint were removed to recover their original emblems.

approximately 15,000 objects that range in date from about 400 B.C. to the nineteenth century. Though Western Europe and Japan are the regions most strongly represented—the collection of more than five thousand pieces of Japanese armor and weapons is the finest outside Japan—the geographical range of the collection is extraordinary, with examples from the Near East, the Middle East, India, Central Asia, China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and North America. The focus is on outstanding craftsmanship and decoration—that is, items often intended solely for display rather than for actual use, from minute ornamental sword fittings to full suits of armor.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art received its first examples of arms and armor in 1881. Thanks to a substantial group of Japanese arms and armor and a major private collection of European arms and armor, both acquired by purchase in 1904, the Museum's collection quickly achieved international recognition. This led to the establishment of a separate Department of Arms and Armor in 1912, which remains the only one of its kind in the United States.

Elaborate armor and martial accoutrements were for many centuries, and in many parts of the world, among the most essential trappings of high-ranking rulers and warriors. The Department of Arms and Armor thus spans a wide range of cultures, one of the widest in the Museum (arms and armor from ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, the ancient Near East, and Africa, Oceania, and the Americas are exhibited with their respective curatorial departments). Expertly fashioned armor and weapons are closely allied to contemporary nonmilitary design and craftsmanship and thus reflect the art-historical developments of their time, place, and culture of origin. Often embellished with precious metals and jewels, the finest examples proclaimed the wearer's or bearer's social status, wealth, and taste.

The Metropolitan is especially renowned for its Japanese holdings, dating from the fifth to the nineteenth century, and for its European holdings—late-medieval pieces as well as a superb series of tournament and parade armors from the Renaissance. Notable among these are five armors made in the English royal workshops at Greenwich for Tudor courtiers; a magnificent helmet inspired by the Antique that is the masterpiece of Filippo Negroli, one of the finest Milanese armorers of the sixteenth century; and a sumptuous armor covered with representations of foliage, human figures, and grotesques worked in low relief, made for King Henry II of France.

Galleries are also devoted to American arms from the colonial era to the late nineteenth century and to arms from various Islamic cultures, including a distinguished series of decorated armor from fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Iran and Anatolia and jewel-studded weapons from the Ottoman Turkish and Mughal Indian courts.

Always among the Museum's most popular attractions, the Arms and Armor Galleries were renovated and reinstalled in 1991 to display to better effect the outstanding collection of armor and weapons of sculptural and ornamental beauty from around the world. Many objects were cleaned and restored in the course of this refurbishment, notably some late-fifteenth-century German shields, from which as many as five layers of paint were removed to recover their original emblems.

More than 11,000 objects of varied materials and types from sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America are overseen by a single curatorial department at the Metropolitan. Representing four millennia of greatly diverse cultural traditions, the department's holdings range from ritual sculpture and monuments of wood and stone to gold and silver ornaments, masks, costumes, and other textiles.Strengths of the collection include decorative and ceremonial objects from the Court of Benin in Nigeria; sculpture from West and Central Africa.
Today the collection of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas is housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, named for Nelson Rockefeller's son, who collected many of the Asmat objects from Papua Province (western New Guinea), Indonesia, that are now in the Museum. Among the most spectacular objects in the wing are the nine fifteen-foot-high Asmat memorial poles (bis) collected by Michael Rockefeller during an expedition to New Guinea in 1961. The Rockefeller Wing, designed as a mirror image of the Sackler Wing, opened to the public in February 1982 with 40,000 square feet of exhibition space on the south side of the Museum.

The African component of the department's collection covers a large geographical area, from the western Sudan south and east through central and southern Africa. The works of art range from refined Afro-Portuguese ivories of the fifteenth century to formally powerful Fang reliquary figures that appealed to early-twentieth-century artists such as Jacob Epstein and Andrй Derain, and include figurative and architectural sculpture, masks, seats of leadership, staffs of office, ceremonial vessels, and personal ornaments. Many of these objects were created to reinforce the rank and prestige of regional leaders, others to indicate the collective status of initiates invested with specific social responsibilities, still others to pay homage to ancestral forces. While wood is the primary medium, objects made of stone, terracotta, gold, silver, and ivory are also present, as are textiles and beadwork.
A gift of particular note is that of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, in which well over one hundred works from the Court of Benin in Nigeria were added to the collection. Dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, the Perls' gift consists of brass figures and architectural plaques, carved ivory altar tusks, musical instruments, boxes, staffs, and courtly and personal ornaments, among other objects. This important addition of royal art has been installed, together with the Metropolitan's other holdings from the Court of Benin, in the center of the recently renovated Benenson Gallery for African Art. The Benenson Gallery, which opened to the public in early 1996, displays approximately four hundred works, representing many of the regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

Metropolitan. Representing four millennia of greatly diverse cultural traditions, the department's holdings range from ritual sculpture and monuments of wood and stone to gold and silver ornaments, masks, costumes, and other textiles.Strengths of the collection include decorative and ceremonial objects from the Court of Benin in Nigeria; sculpture from West and Central Africa.
Today the collection of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas is housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, named for Nelson Rockefeller's son, who collected many of the Asmat objects from Papua Province (western New Guinea), Indonesia, that are now in the Museum. Among the most spectacular objects in the wing are the nine fifteen-foot-high Asmat memorial poles (bis) collected by Michael Rockefeller during an expedition to New Guinea in 1961. The Rockefeller Wing, designed as a mirror image of the Sackler Wing, opened to the public in February 1982 with 40,000 square feet of exhibition space on the south side of the Museum.

The African component of the department's collection covers a large geographical area, from the western Sudan south and east through central and southern Africa. The works of art range from refined Afro-Portuguese ivories of the fifteenth century to formally powerful Fang reliquary figures that appealed to early-twentieth-century artists such as Jacob Epstein and Andrй Derain, and include figurative and architectural sculpture, masks, seats of leadership, staffs of office, ceremonial vessels, and personal ornaments. Many of these objects were created to reinforce the rank and prestige of regional leaders, others to indicate the collective status of initiates invested with specific social responsibilities, still others to pay homage to ancestral forces. While wood is the primary medium, objects made of stone, terracotta, gold, silver, and ivory are also present, as are textiles and beadwork.
A gift of particular note is that of Mr. and Mrs. Klaus G. Perls, in which well over one hundred works from the Court of Benin in Nigeria were added to the collection. Dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century, the Perls' gift consists of brass figures and architectural plaques, carved ivory altar tusks, musical instruments, boxes, staffs, and courtly and personal ornaments, among other objects. This important addition of royal art has been installed, together with the Metropolitan's other holdings from the Court of Benin, in the center of the recently renovated Benenson Gallery for African Art. The Benenson Gallery, which opened to the public in early 1996, displays approximately four hundred works, representing many of the regions of sub-Saharan Africa.

Although The Metropolitan Museum of Art made its first acquisitions among these fields—a group of Peruvian antiquities—as early as 1882, and a pair of Mexican eagle reliefs was given by the Ame American artist Frederic Church in 1893, no significant commitment to the arts of Africa, Oceania, or the Americas was made until 1969. At that time, Nelson A. Rockefeller offered the entire collection of a museum that he had founded in 1954 in association with Renй d'Harnoncourt, the Museum of Primitive Art, to the Metropolitan Museum. Included in the gift were 3,300 works of art, a specialized library, and a photographic collection. A separate department for the care, study, and exhibition of these works and study materials was then established at the Metropolitan.
The department's holdings from the ancient Americas, primarily from Mexico and Peru, represent a 3,500-year period beginning at about 2000 B.C.E. and ending with the arrival of Europeans in America in the late fifteenth century C.E. Among these Precolumbian objects are Olmec ceramics from the first millennium B.C.E. in Mexico; colorful mosaic ear ornaments by Peru's Moche peoples from about a thousand years later; and a ceremonial wood figure of about 1500 C.E. from the Caribbean. The Jan Mitchell Treasury for Precolumbian Works of Art in Gold, which opened in the South American Gallery in 1993, houses the most comprehensive display of American gold objects in the world. Other materials featured in the collection include stone, silver, jade, textiles, and featherwork.

American artist Frederic Church in 1893, no significant commitment to the arts of Africa, Oceania, or the Americas was made until 1969. At that time, Nelson A. Rockefeller offered the entire collection of a museum that he had founded in 1954 in association with Renй d'Harnoncourt, the Museum of Primitive Art, to the Metropolitan Museum. Included in the gift were 3,300 works of art, a specialized library, and a photographic collection. A separate department for the care, study, and exhibition of these works and study materials was then established at the Metropolitan.
The department's holdings from the ancient Americas, primarily from Mexico and Peru, represent a 3,500-year period beginning at about 2000 B.C.E. and ending with the arrival of Europeans in America in the late fifteenth century C.E. Among these Precolumbian objects are Olmec ceramics from the first millennium B.C.E. in Mexico; colorful mosaic ear ornaments by Peru's Moche peoples from about a thousand years later; and a ceremonial wood figure of about 1500 C.E. from the Caribbean. The Jan Mitchell Treasury for Precolumbian Works of Art in Gold, which opened in the South American Gallery in 1993, houses the most comprehensive display of American gold objects in the world. Other materials featured in the collection include stone, silver, jade, textiles, and featherwork.

The Metropolitan Museum’s collection of Korean works of art is among the finest outside Asia, reflecting not only the Korean art tradition but also its reception and appreciation in the West. Due to t the vicissitudes of history, extant examples of Korean art of outstanding quality are rare, a situation that has resulted in Western scholars’ relative lack of emphasis on, and therefore knowledge of, the Korean art tradition in comparison to that of other East Asian countries.

William H. Luers, President of the Metropolitan Museum, stated: "This new permanent gallery has been the dream of many of us here at the Museum for a number of years. Its inauguration symbolizes an important commitment to the study and presentation of the artistic heritage of Korea as well as the completion of our grand Asian museum within the Museum, a project that has seen, over the last few decades, the creation of major new gallery areas for the cultures of Asia."

Philippe de Montebello, the Museum’s Director, noted: "Here, for the first time in the United States and perhaps anywhere outside Korea, the stunning artistic achievements of Korea find significant representation. Of all the East Asian cultural and artistic traditions, those of the Korean peninsula have received the least attention in the West. The Arts of Korea Gallery puts on view superb Korean works of art, many of which have not been displayed before because of limited space, that will raise awareness of the unique artistic achievement of Korea."

Among the rarest pieces in the Museum’s collection are those of the court tradition of the Koryo, dynasty (918-1392). Works in celadon reached the height of achievement in technology, form, and decoration during this period and were admired widely outside the peninsula, both in East Asia at the time they were produced and, more recently, in Europe and the United States.
The Metropolitan’s collection also includes remarkable examples of Korean Buddhist art that are evidence of Korea’s significant role in East Asia’s Buddhist artistic tradition. Buddhist paintings from the Koryo and Choson (1392-1910) dynasties in particular cast light on an area that has yet to be studied thoroughly by Western scholars. The Museum’s painting of a Buddha and a single bodhisattva together in a hanging scroll, Amitabha and Kshitigarbha (Chijang), is the only known surviving example of such an image in Koryo Pure Land Buddhist iconography. A superb early-14th-century painting of the Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara follows one of the most commonly used iconographic conventions for portraying this popular Buddhist deity. Attired in beautiful robes and sashes, he is shown seated on a rocky outcropping, with an entourage of officials offering precious gifts. The extraordinary delicacy of the pictorial details, many of which are executed in brilliant gold pigment, and the relatively pristine state of preservation make this work one of the most important extant examples of the preeminent Koryo tradition of devotional painting.

Another strength of the Museum’s collection is a group of landscape paintings produced in the early Choson dynasty, when the landscape painting tradition that flourished in the Koryo period developed in new directions. Reflecting the importance of An Kyon (act. ca. 1440-70), the most popular and influential court painter of his day, these paintings provide crucial evidence of the Korean landscape painting tradition during a pivotal period of its development, from which very few examples survive.

the vicissitudes of history, extant examples of Korean art of outstanding quality are rare, a situation that has resulted in Western scholars’ relative lack of emphasis on, and therefore knowledge of, the Korean art tradition in comparison to that of other East Asian countries.

William H. Luers, President of the Metropolitan Museum, stated: "This new permanent gallery has been the dream of many of us here at the Museum for a number of years. Its inauguration symbolizes an important commitment to the study and presentation of the artistic heritage of Korea as well as the completion of our grand Asian museum within the Museum, a project that has seen, over the last few decades, the creation of major new gallery areas for the cultures of Asia."

Philippe de Montebello, the Museum’s Director, noted: "Here, for the first time in the United States and perhaps anywhere outside Korea, the stunning artistic achievements of Korea find significant representation. Of all the East Asian cultural and artistic traditions, those of the Korean peninsula have received the least attention in the West. The Arts of Korea Gallery puts on view superb Korean works of art, many of which have not been displayed before because of limited space, that will raise awareness of the unique artistic achievement of Korea."

Among the rarest pieces in the Museum’s collection are those of the court tradition of the Koryo, dynasty (918-1392). Works in celadon reached the height of achievement in technology, form, and decoration during this period and were admired widely outside the peninsula, both in East Asia at the time they were produced and, more recently, in Europe and the United States.
The Metropolitan’s collection also includes remarkable examples of Korean Buddhist art that are evidence of Korea’s significant role in East Asia’s Buddhist artistic tradition. Buddhist paintings from the Koryo and Choson (1392-1910) dynasties in particular cast light on an area that has yet to be studied thoroughly by Western scholars. The Museum’s painting of a Buddha and a single bodhisattva together in a hanging scroll, Amitabha and Kshitigarbha (Chijang), is the only known surviving example of such an image in Koryo Pure Land Buddhist iconography. A superb early-14th-century painting of the Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara follows one of the most commonly used iconographic conventions for portraying this popular Buddhist deity. Attired in beautiful robes and sashes, he is shown seated on a rocky outcropping, with an entourage of officials offering precious gifts. The extraordinary delicacy of the pictorial details, many of which are executed in brilliant gold pigment, and the relatively pristine state of preservation make this work one of the most important extant examples of the preeminent Koryo tradition of devotional painting.

Another strength of the Museum’s collection is a group of landscape paintings produced in the early Choson dynasty, when the landscape painting tradition that flourished in the Koryo period developed in new directions. Reflecting the importance of An Kyon (act. ca. 1440-70), the most popular and influential court painter of his day, these paintings provide crucial evidence of the Korean landscape painting tradition during a pivotal period of its development, from which very few examples survive.

The Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art covers both a lengthy chronological span and a vast geographical area. The collection of more than seven thousand works of art ranges in date from 8000 B.C. (the Neolithic period) to the Arab conquest and rise of Islam beginning in A.D. 651. The works come from ancient Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria, Anatolia, and other lands in the region that extends from the Black and Caspian Seas in the north to the southwestern Arabian peninsula, and from western Turkey on the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan and India. Societies throughout the ancient Near East maintained commercial and cultural contacts across great distances, although the routes, trade goods, and artistic styles and motifs that were exchanged varied in different periods.

Strengths of the department's collection, in formation for more than a century, include Sumerian sculptures; Anatolian ivories; Iranian bronzes; metalwork from Bronze Age Bactria in modern-day Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; and magnificent silver and gold vessels from the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian eras in Iran. These objects are joined by an extraordinary group of Assyrian stone reliefs depicting scenes of warfare and ritual and by enormous guardian figures, all from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.) at Nimrud, as well as by fine ivory carvings, many of which originally served as furniture ornaments at that site. There is also a large collection of stamp and cylinder seals representative of the various cultures of the ancient Near East
The first objects from the ancient Near East to enter the Metropolitan's collection—cuneiform tablets and stamp and cylinder seals—were acquired in the late nineteenth century. These and other works of art from the region were overseen by the Department of Decorative Arts until 1932, when a separate Department of Near Eastern Art, comprising both the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras, was established. Finally, in 1956, the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art was formally established under its current mandate—to collect, research, and exhibit works of art created before the Sasanian Empire fell to Arab armies in A.D. 651.

The department's collection has been acquired by gift, by purchase, and by participation in archaeological excavations at, for example, Nippur, Nimrud, and Ctesiphon in Iraq and at Hasanlu, Yarim Tepe, and Qasr-i Abu Nasr in Iran. It has also been enriched by long-term loans from other museum collections. Foreign lenders include the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin; the British Museum, London; the Israel Antiquities Authority; and the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences, Tajikistan.

Among the most famous pieces in the collection are a gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian headdress discovered on a young female attendant who had been sacrificed in the royal cemetery at Ur in Mesopotamia (ca. 2600-2500 B.C.); the head of a ruler with curled beard, made of arsenical copper and presumably from western Iran (ca. 2200 B.C.); the only complete statue in the United States of the Neo-Sumerian ruler Gudea, who united a large area in southern Mesopotamia around 2100 B.C.; an axe head of silver and gold foil from ancient Bactria, decorated with fantastic creatures (ca. 2000 B.C.); a Hittite silver drinking vessel in the form of a stag from central Anatolia, dating to the Empire period (ca. fifteenth to thirteenth century B.C.); the imposing glazed brick lions created to decorate the walls of the street between the Ishtar Gate and the Festival House in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.; a masterfully crafted silver head of a Sasanian king of the fourth century A.D.; and a remarkable and extensive collection of Sasanian silver-gilt vessels.

In October 1999, the Galleries for Ancient Near Eastern Art were reopened to the public after an eighteen-month-long renovation and reinstallation, for which support was provided by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund. The galleries are arranged chronologically and by geographical region, with objects placed in contexts that illuminate their significance in antiquity as well as their connections to the art of neighboring cultures. A focus of the new construction was the central part of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Gallery for Assyrian Art, which recreates an audience hall in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.) at Nimrud in present-day Iraq. The colossal lamassu, or guardian figures, and monumental stone reliefs in this space—among the most prized objects in the collection—were opened to daylight from above and ceiling beams were set at the approximate height of the palace rooms.

(the Neolithic period) to the Arab conquest and rise of Islam beginning in A.D. 651. The works come from ancient Mesopotamia, Iran, Syria, Anatolia, and other lands in the region that extends from the Black and Caspian Seas in the north to the southwestern Arabian peninsula, and from western Turkey on the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River Valley in modern-day Pakistan and India. Societies throughout the ancient Near East maintained commercial and cultural contacts across great distances, although the routes, trade goods, and artistic styles and motifs that were exchanged varied in different periods.

Strengths of the department's collection, in formation for more than a century, include Sumerian sculptures; Anatolian ivories; Iranian bronzes; metalwork from Bronze Age Bactria in modern-day Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; and magnificent silver and gold vessels from the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian eras in Iran. These objects are joined by an extraordinary group of Assyrian stone reliefs depicting scenes of warfare and ritual and by enormous guardian figures, all from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.) at Nimrud, as well as by fine ivory carvings, many of which originally served as furniture ornaments at that site. There is also a large collection of stamp and cylinder seals representative of the various cultures of the ancient Near East
The first objects from the ancient Near East to enter the Metropolitan's collection—cuneiform tablets and stamp and cylinder seals—were acquired in the late nineteenth century. These and other works of art from the region were overseen by the Department of Decorative Arts until 1932, when a separate Department of Near Eastern Art, comprising both the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras, was established. Finally, in 1956, the Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art was formally established under its current mandate—to collect, research, and exhibit works of art created before the Sasanian Empire fell to Arab armies in A.D. 651.

The department's collection has been acquired by gift, by purchase, and by participation in archaeological excavations at, for example, Nippur, Nimrud, and Ctesiphon in Iraq and at Hasanlu, Yarim Tepe, and Qasr-i Abu Nasr in Iran. It has also been enriched by long-term loans from other museum collections. Foreign lenders include the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin; the British Museum, London; the Israel Antiquities Authority; and the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences, Tajikistan.

Among the most famous pieces in the collection are a gold, lapis lazuli, and carnelian headdress discovered on a young female attendant who had been sacrificed in the royal cemetery at Ur in Mesopotamia (ca. 2600-2500 B.C.); the head of a ruler with curled beard, made of arsenical copper and presumably from western Iran (ca. 2200 B.C.); the only complete statue in the United States of the Neo-Sumerian ruler Gudea, who united a large area in southern Mesopotamia around 2100 B.C.; an axe head of silver and gold foil from ancient Bactria, decorated with fantastic creatures (ca. 2000 B.C.); a Hittite silver drinking vessel in the form of a stag from central Anatolia, dating to the Empire period (ca. fifteenth to thirteenth century B.C.); the imposing glazed brick lions created to decorate the walls of the street between the Ishtar Gate and the Festival House in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century B.C.; a masterfully crafted silver head of a Sasanian king of the fourth century A.D.; and a remarkable and extensive collection of Sasanian silver-gilt vessels.

In October 1999, the Galleries for Ancient Near Eastern Art were reopened to the public after an eighteen-month-long renovation and reinstallation, for which support was provided by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund. The galleries are arranged chronologically and by geographical region, with objects placed in contexts that illuminate their significance in antiquity as well as their connections to the art of neighboring cultures. A focus of the new construction was the central part of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Gallery for Assyrian Art, which recreates an audience hall in the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 B.C.) at Nimrud in present-day Iraq. The colossal lamassu, or guardian figures, and monumental stone reliefs in this space—among the most prized objects in the collection—were opened to daylight from above and ceiling beams were set at the approximate height of the palace rooms.

The collection of Asian art at the Metropolitan Museum is the largest and most comprehensive in the West. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works that provide—in b both quality and breadth—an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world. The collection of more than 60,000 objects, which range in date from the second millennium B.C. to the early twentieth century, includes paintings, prints, calligraphy, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, lacquers, works of decorative art, and textiles from East Asia, South Asia, the Himalayan kingdoms, and Southeast Asia. The department is renowned for its Chinese calligraphy and paintings—both monumental landscapes and more intimate glimpses of nature—as well as for its Japanese folding screens and woodblock prints and its assemblage of functional, ritual, and luxury objects in many media. Stone and metal sculptures from South and Southeast Asia and early paintings from Nepal and Tibet are other areas of strength within the collection.

both quality and breadth—an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world. The collection of more than 60,000 objects, which range in date from the second millennium B.C. to the early twentieth century, includes paintings, prints, calligraphy, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, lacquers, works of decorative art, and textiles from East Asia, South Asia, the Himalayan kingdoms, and Southeast Asia. The department is renowned for its Chinese calligraphy and paintings—both monumental landscapes and more intimate glimpses of nature—as well as for its Japanese folding screens and woodblock prints and its assemblage of functional, ritual, and luxury objects in many media. Stone and metal sculptures from South and Southeast Asia and early paintings from Nepal and Tibet are other areas of strength within the collection.

The Metropolitan Museum's collection of Islamic art, which ranges in date from the seventh to the nineteenth century, reflects the great diversity and range of Islamic culture and offers perhaps the most comprehensive permanent installation of Islamic art on view anywhere. Nearly 12,000 objects created in the cultural tradition of the world's youngest monotheistic religion (Islam, founded in A.D. 622, means "submission to God") have been assembled at the Metropolitan from as far westward as Spain and Morocco and as far eastward as Central Asia and India. While many of these objects were originally intended for decoration of a mosque or for use during worship, domestic and luxury objects in the collection reveal the mutual influence of artistic practice in the sacred and secular realms. In particular, the traditions of calligraphy, vegetal ornament (the arabesque), and geometric patterning are strongly expressed in most pieces on view.
Although some seals and jewelry from Islamic countries were acquired as early as 1874, and a number of Turkish textiles in 1879, the Metropolitan Museum received its first major group of Islamic objects in 1891, as a bequest of Edward C. Moore. Since then, the collection has grown through gifts, bequests, and purchases, as well as through Museum-sponsored excavations at Nishapur, Iran, in 1935–39 and in 1947. Until 1932, when the Department of Near Eastern Art was constituted, all of these objects were overseen by the Department of Decorative Arts. By 1963, the volume of objects had increased to a point that necessitated an official departmental division between the ancient Near Eastern and the Islamic portions of the collection. In 1975, the Islamic galleries were relocated and completely renovated

most comprehensive permanent installation of Islamic art on view anywhere. Nearly 12,000 objects created in the cultural tradition of the world's youngest monotheistic religion (Islam, founded in A.D. 622, means "submission to God") have been assembled at the Metropolitan from as far westward as Spain and Morocco and as far eastward as Central Asia and India. While many of these objects were originally intended for decoration of a mosque or for use during worship, domestic and luxury objects in the collection reveal the mutual influence of artistic practice in the sacred and secular realms. In particular, the traditions of calligraphy, vegetal ornament (the arabesque), and geometric patterning are strongly expressed in most pieces on view.
Although some seals and jewelry from Islamic countries were acquired as early as 1874, and a number of Turkish textiles in 1879, the Metropolitan Museum received its first major group of Islamic objects in 1891, as a bequest of Edward C. Moore. Since then, the collection has grown through gifts, bequests, and purchases, as well as through Museum-sponsored excavations at Nishapur, Iran, in 1935–39 and in 1947. Until 1932, when the Department of Near Eastern Art was constituted, all of these objects were overseen by the Department of Decorative Arts. By 1963, the volume of objects had increased to a point that necessitated an official departmental division between the ancient Near Eastern and the Islamic portions of the collection. In 1975, the Islamic galleries were relocated and completely renovated