The Met: European Paintings To 1800, Part The First

As would be expected of an "encyclopedic" museum, the Met has an extensive collection of European paintings, including just about all of the great Masters, with particular strengths (in numbers: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez)) here and there. Over our seven weeks in NYC, it took us several visits to do all these paintings--fitting them in with other Met visits too--and it will take me several posts to reflect some of what's there. And these are just the European paintings, to 1800. These paintings are not in strict chronological nor national order...sometimes they're in "themed" rooms, sometimes they're in different departments of the museum altogether. (E. g., there are two Hubert Robert paintings in the Decorative Arts rooms.) An encyclopedic museum presents classificatory challenges well beyond those of a museum that does just European paintings...for example, the National Gallery of Art (London).  

The Met's Giotto, an Adoration, c. 1320; the description says
that Giotto is generally considered the founder of Italian
painting...yet he is not mentioned at all in the museum's new
Siena: the Rise of Painting exhibit...which I'll get to in due
course

The Knock-Out (for us): van Eyk's Crucifixion and Judgement, both in original frames;
1420s; they need major restorative work, IMHO; but here one can see where Bosch got
some ideas, three generations later; and all the other major Northern masters; the Hell is
particularly lurid; I'm beginning to think of van Eyck as a fountainhead of all subsequent
painting...and not just in materials and technique...

Memling, portraits of Tommaso di Folco Portinari and Maria Baroncelli,
1470; Italians, a Medici banker and wife living in Bruges

Felippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a
Casement, 1440

Domenico Ghirlandiao, Francesco Sassetti and his Son Teodoro,
1488

Ucello, Crucifixion, 1450s

Botticelli, Three Miracles of St. Xenobius, c. 1500

A Florentine marriage chest...nevermind the picture; some of Botticelli's
biggest hits are thought to have been from marriage chests (e.g., the
great Venus and Mars at the National Gallery (London)

Attributed to the workshop of van Eyck, 1430s; certainly
not van Eyck himself

Bosch, Adoration of the Magi, 1475

Giovanni Bellini, Virgin and Child, 1480s; among
the earliest Italian oils...

Mantegna, Holy Family with Saint Magdalene, 1495;
a rare distemper on wood panel...

Durer, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, 1519

Cranach, Samson and Delilah, 1528

Cranach, Judith and Holofernes, 1530

Lotto, Venus and Cupid, 1520s; note Cupid micturating on Venus...

Veronese, Mars and Venus United by Love, 1570

Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1504

Holbein the Younger, Herman von Wedigh III, 1532

Rubens, Forest at Dawn with a Deer Hunt, 1635

The lone (elder) Brueghel, The Harvesters, 1565

Rubens and Brueghel (Jan, elder), The Feast of Achelous, 1635;
"you do the faces, I'll do the landscape...the apprentices can do
the rest..."

Interim Update #1,284: And Another Episode In Art History

Today marks yet another removal: from NYC to Little Rock, AR, and then to our official home base in Knoxville, TN. Our seven weeks in NYC have been innerestin', as the fella says, and I still have 30+ blog posts to do, to recount our eventful and edifying days here. But for the period of removal and transition, I'll have to pause the blog for a while. 

I did not want to leave the blog in Egypt (BFE, as one of our children liked to say), however, especially in view of an important episode that occurred yesterday, our last full day in NYC, at what is now Vicki's favorite museum, the Met. We spent the afternoon doing the Impressionist/Post-Impressionist tour, and then lingered in those rooms, re-visiting favorite painters from the Orsay, the Marmotten-Monet, the Orangerie, and others. And then it happened...

We were just entering a room full of Renoirs, when keen-eyed
Vicki spotted this silverfish (lepisma saccharinum) just 
below one of Renoir's masterpieces

As a loyal Met member, I located and notified the
nearest guard, who immediately called for back-up

I thought he might simply have swatted the bug away--I 
would have, but for the motion detecting security system--
but, no, he said the Museum would want to capture and
identify the creature, assess the extent of infestation, any
damage, etc.; seriously

The back-up, evidently a supervisor, was
on the spot almost immediately, examining the
invader...

Conferring with his colleague

And then calling for the Met's crack bug-SWAT team;

at this point we had to move on to Cezanne or maybe

Morisot, but contentedly so, having dutifully done our 

part for preservation and conservation and art history; 

we're hoping the Met will extend my membership to

2025-2026

The Met: Egypt

The ancient Egyptian precincts of the Met are arguably its largest, spanning 3,000 years or so of continuous history and resulting from numerous Met-sponsored digs. We did the Egypt tour on September 30th, then lingered, and then have returned several times for assorted bits and pieces previously missed. It's that large. It is no help that ancient Egyptian art changed little over the long course of its history. Vicki is the resident Egyptologist here, having visited Egypt in 1982, and also having visited Highclere Castle--home and museum of Lord Carnavon--at least three times. She is fond too of the recent Mummy movie series, the lead female character of which is a librarian. My total knowledge of ancient Egyptian history, culture, religion, etc., comes from Boris Karloff movies. 

The pix below are not in chronological order, since the tour skipped around a bit, and then we skipped around a bit too, back-filling. All dates and dynasties are BCE. As other, later pix from the Egyptian division emerge, I'll add them in a second post.

Writing on the wall

Standard pose, kilt; no bagpipes

Discoveries from a Met dig, tomb goods; for use in the Afterlife

Actual items; several rooms thereof

Also small boats and crews for use in the Afterlife

Photo from the dig of this stuff

Mummy body bag

Quite a few of these

Implements, tools

Mirrors, jewelry, etc.

Toiletries case

Beautiful gold work

In one of the several large format rooms; all pharaohs; the chin hair is a give-away

Chin-hair=pharaoh; ankh=god, key to Underworld

The Temple of Dendur, in its special humongous display hall facing
Central Park; the Temple was a gift from Egypt to the US in recogntion
of America's help with the Aswan high dam...flooding from which
was going to bury/destroy many such monuments; Egypt specified it
had to be on view 24x7

Dendur is actually a temple from the Roman era; that's Caesar
Augustus (right) paying homage to Isis and Osiris

Colorized version

Temple guardian

Closer up

19th century graffiti

More graffiti

Interesting foot gear concept

Ancient Egyptian linen; seriously; the desert is great for preserving
some things

Note shabti in the box left; your servants that will
spring to lfe...in the by and by....

Egyptophile

Thousands upon thousands of items; sort of like in the
study room for classical Greek and Roman bits; the Met has
sufficient space to put everything on display, in some form

And thousands  more

Toy game

The wig is contemporary but the hair-net thing is ancient

Another boat for getting around in the Afterlife

Interior of an actual tomb, removed and reconstructed from Egypt