
Portable Icon with the Virgin Eleousa
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Images of the Virgin Eleousa, the Virgin of Compassion, developed in the later Byzantine centuries and profoundly influenced the art of the Latin West. Here, the intimate poses of the heads and hands display the warm emotional attachment of the Virgin and Child. The fifteenth-century Latin inscription on the reverse identifies the icon as the one that converted the fourth-century Saint Catherine of Alexandria to Christianity.
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.