Roundel with Saints Barbara and Catherine

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The artist who painted this roundel, probably from Swabia in southwestern Germany, had a sure command of multiple techniques including point of brush, stylus and stick work, badger brushing and other reductive means of texturing unfired mattes as well as of silver stain. Another roundel of exactly the same size and subject is now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich. When one scale image is overlaid with the other the outlines correspond precisely indicating that both were executed from the same design. The only difference was that the individual painters aligned the like-sized blank roundel over the same or duplicate drawing in slightly different positions. In this case the haloes of both saints were slightly trimmed, whereas in the Munich example, the halos are intact but the lower folds of their robes are abridged.

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