Pietà

Michelangelo Buonarroti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Pietà Michelangelo invented for Vittoria attracted an unusual, ongoing fame, to the point that it became a cult image widely copied and repurposed in different materials. Beyond the numerous copies in drawings, paintings, and engravings, the design was adapted for portable altarpieces, votive reliefs, and paxes—small tablets kissed by the participants in Mass—such as this one. The pax, its gilding quite worn, is crudely inscribed with the name of a religious society of Saint Peter.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art