Stove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and Samson

Stove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and Samson

Buda Castle Workshop

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The corner tile is from the decorative outer cladding of a closed wood-burning stove in the Chapter House of the Augustinian Abbey at Waldhausen in southern Austria. The abbey was dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist, who appears on the heraldic shield. Behind the shield, Samson strangles the lion. The stove may have been a gift to the abbey from Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490), King of Hungary, who also ruled Austria from 1480.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and SamsonStove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and SamsonStove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and SamsonStove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and SamsonStove Tile with Saint John the Evangelist and Samson

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.