Adoration of the Kings

Bernard van Orley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Though small in size, this rich devotional tapestry, woven with virtuoso technique in the priciest of raw materials, embodies the highest end production associated with early sixteenth-century Brussels. Complementing its physical appeal was the caliber of its designer, Bernard van Orley, wo was admired official court painter to both Margaret of Austria and, subsequently, Mary of Hungary. With fleeting movement, gorgeously observed draperies billowing, the three kings launch themselves into this scene, as if having just strode into the tapestry from behind its left and right borders. This is a more dynamic version of a design van Orley also executed in oil on panel in a painting now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Van Orley, or a member of his workshop, also explored this composition in a related and extended scene in The Met’s drawing (2014.100) itself, apparently, a design for a larger tapestry.

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