Virgin

Joan Avesta

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Found near the medieval fortified Languedoc town of Carcassonne, this figure of the Virgin—the Child is lost—is the work of a documented local sculptor, Joan Avesta, who carved a number of important funerary monuments in southwestern France and in Catalonia. He worked first in Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Belpech and eventually at the Cathedral of Gerona.

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