Shepherd and Shepherdess Making Music

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This tapestry fragment depicts a shepherd couple entertaining themselves with music, while three sheep from their flock graze behind them in the flower-covered background. The shepherdess, seen at the left, holds up a sheet of music as she sings: Chantons sur lerbette Let's sing, on the grass, Avec ta musette with your bagpipe, Quelque note double a tune for two. The shepherd plays a bagpipe, responding with a verse of his own: Cuant est de georgette When she sings Elle a lavoix nette her voice is fair: Mes ie faiz le trouble but I do the work. It is one of three surviving fragments woven after the same series of cartoons, the other pieces of which are in the Detroit Institute of Arts and in Mobilier National in Paris. The shield that hangs between two branches of the orange tree has not yet been identified.

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