Jug with Figure in Profile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

By the 1500s Italian maiolica makers would famously use the surface of their wares to depict complex narrative scenes, but this jug, with its confident half-length depiction of a man, represents an early foray into figure drawing by a Florentine potter.

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