Gold Bracteate

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This thin gold pendant, known as a bracteate, displays a deft and spirited design defined by bold, sweeping lines. The central face exemplifies the exuberant, highly abstact style of early medieval Scandinavian artists. The border zone, formed by intricate and orderly rows of repeated punchwork, reveals the great technical competency of goldsmiths working in northern Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries. The manufacture of bracteates probably originated with Roman and Byzantine portrait medallions, presented by the emperor as gifts to important figures. Here, however, the imperial image has been transformed into the depiction of a god, perhaps Odin, chief of Nordic pantheon; his oversize face is balanced atop a galloping horse with horns. With their fine workmanship and allusions to the Roman and Byzantine worlds, gold bracteates conveyed both the sophisticated taste and the high social status of their owners, who wore them as fine jewerly and hoarded them as treasure.

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