Plaque with Christ enthroned with two Apostles

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

These carvings—one showing the Virgin and the Infant Jesus, the other showing Christ flanked by Saints Peter and Paul—reuse ivory plaques that might have once served as furniture mounts. The plaques, originally carved in Egypt one hundred years earlier, depict on their backs a tree flanked by birds and Hercules capturing the Golden Stag of Artemis. The recarving of pagan ivories with Christian subjects, probably to adorn a Gospel book, occurred in a workshop associated with the emperor Charles the Bald (r. 840–77), the grandson of Charlemagne. The reuse of ancient ivory plaques, not unusual in the 800s, was due to the rarity of African elephant ivory in Europe.

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