Bellows with the Flight into Egypt

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

By the fifteenth century, bellows, an implement known from antiquity, were often richly decorated and were displayed on the chimneys of domestic interiors. This bellows, carved in high relief and once brightly painted, shows on one side the Flight into Egypt. Beneath the scene are two coats of arms, the left one unidentified, the right identified as that of Amsterdam, indicating that the bellows was once used in a household or a guild hall in that city. The back of the bellows has a circular inset within a deep gilded molding pierced with three openings for the intake of air. The air was expelled through the metal pipe projecting from the jaws of the dragon’s head at the end of the bellows. The sides of the bellows are of leather. The decoration on this bellows of a religious subject does not indicate that it belongs to a religious establishment; such themes frequently appear on objects of daily household usage. This same scene, in an almost identical representation, though without arms on the shields, appears on a bellows thought to be from Utrecht, circa 1510. The existence of two such similar bellows suggests that these items, in common use in the household during the Middle Ages, may have been produced in large quantities with the arms left blank for completion after purchase.

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