Panel from the Lid of a Box

Panel from the Lid of a Box

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This openwork ivory panel once formed the lid of a box. Similar fragments in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Bargello Museum in Florence likely come from the same box. Details of the costumes on the four figures suggest that the box was made in France or England in the years around 1400. Its lacy, openwork composition, complex architectural decoration, and figural composition form a sharp contrast to the decorative repertoire of French ivory boxes made earlier in the fourteenth centuries, demonstrating the continued innovation of ivory working ateliers in the late Middle Ages.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.