Diana

Karl Theodore Bitter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bitter’s Diana assumes a static pose, left foot forward and shoulders thrown back, bow held almost casually behind her. The stately, dignified stance projects both her stature as a chaste goddess and her physical strength. Diana’s beauty, combined with her hunter’s cunning, struck a chord with Americans around the turn of the century, who may have seen the Roman goddess—mighty, willful, and independent—as an analogue to their nation at the moment it was coming into its own as a global power.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art