Bowl with Face

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The small slipware bowl, meant for domestic use, shows the face of an unidentified, bearded man on its interior. The work is typical of Byzantine slipware where the red clay body of a vessel was covered with slip (liquid clay) that was then cut away, or incised with lines, to create an image. Here the slip was cut away to form the outline of the triangular face with its staring eyes, beard and other details incised in the remaining slip.

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