Doorway and Staircase Enclosure

Doorway and Staircase Enclosure

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This carved door and stairway exemplify the fine craftsmanship lavished on domestic architecture in the late Middle Ages. The carver has borrowed motifs, such as the slender openwork arches, from Gothic church architecture to achieve an exceptionally delicate ornamental effect. A photograph of 1887 shows the woodwork in its original setting on Abbeville’s "Street of the Tannery." Still today, street names in Europe often derive from the profession of a city’s medieval residents. The figures in the archway and the iron knocker, although contemporary, were added later.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Doorway and Staircase EnclosureDoorway and Staircase EnclosureDoorway and Staircase EnclosureDoorway and Staircase EnclosureDoorway and Staircase Enclosure

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.