Moses Shown the Promised Land

Benjamin West

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In London, West taught three generations of visitingAmerican artists, advancing both the Neoclassical and the Romantic styles. He was engaged for three decades in the massive decorative scheme for a Chapel of Revealed Religion that his kingly patron, George III, wished to erect at Windsor Castle. Although West completed more than thirty-five pictures, the project was eventually abandoned. The Museum’s oil sketch is probably a study for a large painting destined for the cycle, in which Moses was to play an important role. The shaft of light cutting diagonally through the Baroque composition symbolizes God’s revelation to Moses of the promised land he was to see but never enter himself.

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