Enthroned Virgin and Child

Enthroned Virgin and Child

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Combining qualities of sweetness and fragility, the popular theme of the “beautiful Madonna” was an appealing creation in central European art about 1400. This devotional statuette, carved in the later “soft style” of about 1420–40, may have adorned a domestic altar.

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.