Now at the Met

 

McQueen and Tartan

Jonathan Faiers, Reader in Fashion Theory at Winchester School of Art

Posted: Thursday, June 30, 2011

Winner of McQueen Fashion Design Contest Selected

Shannon Bell Price, Associate Research Curator, The Costume Institute

Posted: Thursday, June 16, 2011

Winners Announced: "Get Closer" 2011 Photo Contest

Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2011

On February 25, the Museum launched "Get Closer," a photography contest in which we invited visitors to share details from works of art in our collection that have intrigued or inspired them. Hundreds of visitors submitted photographs taken throughout the Main Building and The Cloisters museum and gardens, the branch of the Museum located in Northern Manhattan. Contributors described such details as the powerful eyes of an African mask, the sensual quality of a lemon peel in a Dutch still life, and the iridescence of a Tiffany vase. We extend our thanks to all of the contest participants for their inspired contributions.

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The Washington Haggadah: Of Mice and Men

Barbara Drake Boehm, Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters; and Melanie Holcomb, Associate Curator, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

Posted: Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Mask of Agamemnon: An Example of Electroformed Reproduction of Artworks Made by E. Gilliéron in the Early Twentieth Century

Dorothy H. Abramitis, Conservator, The Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation

Posted: Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Electrotype reproduction of the gold "Mask of Agamemnon" from Mycenae

The "Mask of Agamemnon" is one of the most famous gold artifacts from the Greek Bronze Age. Found at Mycenae in 1876 by the distinguished archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, it was one of several gold funeral masks found laid over the faces of the dead buried in the shaft graves of a royal cemetery. The most detailed and stylistically distinct mask came to be known as the Mask of Agamemnon, named after the famous king of ancient Mycenae whose triumphs and tribulations are celebrated in Homer's epic poems and in the tragic plays of Euripides. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s replica of this mask molded by Emile Gilliéron père (manufactured and sold by the Würtemberg Electroplate Company) is an example of an electroformed reproduction, also commonly known as an electrotype—or by the historic term, "galvanoplastic"—reproduction.

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Met Receives Two Awards at Annual AAM Conference

Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2011

At the recent American Association of Museums annual conference, the Metropolitan Museum won two awards for online projects.

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Today in Met History: May 31

Melissa Bowling, Assistant Archivist, Museum Archives

Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2011

One hundred and twenty years ago today, on May 31, 1891, The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened to the public on a Sunday for the first time in its history.

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The Gilliéron Paintings on Paper, from a Conservation Perspective

Rebecca Capua, Assistant Conservator, Department of Paper Conservation

Posted: Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Consolidation of flaking gouache paint on "Reproduction of a fresco with two women in a chariot" by Emile Gilliéron

Many of the works on paper currently on view in Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son required conservation treatment to address a variety of structural and aesthetic problems. The dedicated effort over the past two years to address the conservation of these objects and to look more closely at their method of production reflects a reconsideration of their role in the Museum and in the history of art itself.

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Met Launches its First Interactive E-publication

Posted: Wednesday, May 18, 2011

This month, the Museum launched its first iPad app interactive e-publication for the exhibition Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art.

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Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age

Seán Hemingway, Curator, Department of Greek and Roman Art

Posted: Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Fresco Reproductions

In the second half of the nineteenth century, archaeologists began to focus on understanding prehistoric Greece and its extraordinary flowering during the Greek Bronze Age (about 3000–1050 B.C.). Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of wealthy tombs at Mycenae in 1876 brought to life the Heroic Age immortalized in the epic poetry of Homer, in which King Agamemnon’s palace was described as "rich in gold." Twenty-four years after Schliemann's find, the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans began excavations at Knossos, on the island of Crete, that would yield a vast complex of buildings belonging to a sophisticated prehistoric culture, which he dubbed Minoan after the legendary King Minos. Evans hired a Swiss artist, Emile Gilliéron (1850–1924) and later his son, Emile (1885–1939), as chief fresco restorers at Knossos, where they worked for more than thirty years. The Gilliérons also established a thriving business catering to the popular demand for reproductions of antiquities from the newly identified Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. The current exhibition Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son focuses on the colorful and carefully crafted reproductions made by the Gilliérons, which were disseminated around the world and provided a vivid impression of the new finds that inspired a generation of writers, intellectuals and artists, from James Joyce and Sigmund Freud to Pablo Picasso. While there have been previous exhibitions in Europe devoted to the Gilliérons' work, this is the first such presentation in North America.

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Now at the Met offers in-depth articles and multimedia features about the Museum's current exhibitions, events, research, announcements, behind-the-scenes activities, and more.

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