Bowl of a Drinking Cup

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

With its lively nude male figures and dragons entwined in foliage, this bowl was likely a part of a secular drinking cup rather than a ciborium (a vessel that holds the Host) or a chalice for use in the Mass, as was once thought. Between the principal compartments inhabited by the nude figures and dragons are smaller areas with basilisks. The heads of the men and beasts are in high relief, and the bands between the compartments and the palmette frieze below the rim are crisply rendered. The decoration of the bowl has parallels in twelfth-century English art, but similar pieces have also been found in Sweden. This example was discovered near the Ob' River in Siberia, an indication of how objects in Middle Ages sometimes circulated far from their place of manufacture.

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