Lamentation Beneath the Cross

Lamentation Beneath the Cross

Adam Lenckhart

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fine perspectival gradations of relief create a painterly effect of distant background while the foreground is filled with vivid detail-the finely carved crown of thorns, the carefully observed leafy ferns, the bent nails removed from holes clearly indicated on the cross. Lenckhart often employed such detail to great expressive effect; here, the precise carving of the strands of hair curtaining the face of the Magdalen draws our gaze to her grief-stricken form.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.