Bowl with Cheetah

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Her dowry included Twelve well-proven hunting leopards, Twelve snowy hawks from Abasgia [in present-day Georgia], Twelve falconers, and the same number of falcons — From Digenis Akritis, an epic poem about a Byzantine-Arab border lord, oral poetry written down about 1000 or later Predatory cats and birds may have been intended to evoke the hunt, a popular pastime for members of the imperial court and ruling classes and regarded as good practice for military action. Treatises and copies of ancient texts on hunting dating to the eleventh and twelfth centuries suggest a renewed interest in the sport. The emperor John II Komnenos perished in a hunting accident in 1143.

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