The Crucifixion

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This medallion, probably from a book cover, can be securely attributed to the celebrated pilgrimage abbey of Conques, France’s richest surviving repository of medieval goldsmiths’ work. Among the rare works dispersed from its treasury in the nineteenth century, several share a distinctive technique, style, and palette uniquely combined during the abbacy of Bégon III in the late eleventh century. The monkgoldsmiths have here superimposed copper plaques, the lower one set with cloisons (wires) that define features and drapery, and the upper one cut to define the silhouettes of the figures and the cross.

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