Game Piece with Menelaus and Companions Battling Proteus

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Objects related to the games of tables and chess were among Salgo’s favorite items. Such games were predecessors of modern backgammon and widespread in Medieval Europe. Surviving ivory game pieces are rare, and this is the only known piece from a thirty-piece set. These unusual objects often depict sophisticated narrative and allegorical subjects. This carving may show a scene from the Odyssey, when King Menelaus drives a spear into the open jaws of the sea-god Proteus, transformed into a lioness or bearlike creature. Nearly 500 game pieces, along with game boards and boxes from various periods were donated by Ambassador Salgo to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich.

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