Saint James the Greater

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint James the Greater is shown in his traditional medieval guise of a pilgrim, wearing a soft brim hat emblazoned with a cockleshell emblem and holding a book and a staff (now lost). His shrine at Santiago de Compostela in Spain was the third most popular pilgrimage site after Jerusalem and Rome. The statue was discovered together with the statue of Saint John the Baptist (exhibited nearby) in a garden-wall niche outside the church of Mouthier-le-Vieillard in Poligny (southeast of Dijon). These sculptures bear the marked influence of an earlier generation of sculptors, principally, Claus Sluter (active 1379–d.1406) and Claux de Werve (active 1396–d.1439), both of whom worked for Duke Philip the Bold.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art