Doorway

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Historically, the buildings of Cistercian monks are relatively spare in decoration, but this doorway comes from the chateau added by one of the commendatory abbots, appointed as fiscal and administrative overseers of the abbey in the late Middle Ages, as the population of monks diminished. The abbey was dissolved in 1792, during the French Revolution; the kneeling angels in the tympanum probably were damaged at that time.

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