Prophet King from a Tree of Jesse Window

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This half- length figure of a prophet king almost certainly came from a Tree of Jesse window that incorporated scenes from the Infancy of Christ, four panels of which are now installed in Falkenstein Castle, in the Harz Mountains near Germany's border with the Czech Republic. The original location of the window is uncertain, but it may have come from the church in Wurzen, east of Leipzig, in the diocese of Meiseen. Although the window appears to have been made in the eastern reaches of Germany (Sachsen-Anhalt), the king depicted is stylistically similar to works from the Rhineland. The panel is an eloquent and crisp expression of the "zigzag" style (Zackenstil), characterized by sharply angled and hooked lines, that is a hallmark of both manuscript and panel painting in the mid- and late thirteenth century; the period was heretofore unrepresented in our holdings of German stained glass. With its strong affinities to the Aschaffenburg Evangelary (Aschaffenburg, Hofbibliothek, ms. 13), this work also convincingly underscores the close relationship between manuscript illumination and glass painting in this period and the consequent dissemination of styles.

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