Brandie Ratliff, Research Associate, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Over the past few weeks, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition was dismantled, and we've begun wrapping up work on the exhibition: thanking our generous sponsors, lenders, and catalogue authors, preparing reports on the exhibition, tidying files, and reinstalling Met objects in our permanent galleries. The exhibition was a tremendous success.
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Annie Labatt, Chester Dale Fellow, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Friday, July 6, 2012
In the interview with Pete Dandridge, we learned about the challenges involved in treating and displaying the delicate ivory panels from al-Humayma. The thoughtful and considerate conservation work on these pieces allows us to see amazing remnants of a large Abbasid residence located in the Hisma desert of southern Jordan. They also represent—through the figures' wardrobes and poses—a point of contact between multiple cultures.
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Annie Labatt, Chester Dale Fellow, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2012
As registrar, Aileen Chuk organizes the arrival, installation, and return of loaned works of art for exhibitions at the Museum. I recently spoke with her about the preparations for Byzantium and Islam.
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Alzahraa K. Ahmed, Intern, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2012
In many cases, burials have served as windows onto a past culture's daily life. Children's graves are no exception. Although attracting less archaeological attention than other finds, they provide abundant material that informs our understanding of the diverse activities and habits of people during the Greco-Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic eras.
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Annie Labatt, Chester Dale Fellow, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Alzahraa K. Ahmed, Intern, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Tuesday, July 3, 2012
"In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful, from Muhammad the Messenger of God to Heraclius the Emperor of Byzantium, greetings to him who is the follower of righteous guidance. I bid you to hear the divine call. I am the Messenger of God to the people. Accept Islam for your salvation."
According to Islamic tradition, these words were sent in a letter from the Prophet Muhammad (570–632) to Heraclius (r. 610–641) in the year 628 A.D., inviting the Byzantine emperor to embrace Islam.
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Annie Labatt, Chester Dale Fellow, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Tuesday, July 3, 2012
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Pete Dandridge, Conservator and Administrator, The Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects Conservation, about his work preparing for the exhibition.
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Grace Labatt, Editor, Voyageur Press
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2012
Perhaps because it's an election year, the word "byzantine" pops up quite a bit in the news these days, although it's not used to refer to an artistic style or a period of history.
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Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, Artist and Art Historian
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2012
The tradition of inscribed textiles in the Islamic world dates to the passing of the Prophet Muhammad (632 A.D.), whose spiritual and political authority was transferred through the donning of his mantle.
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Yitzchak Schwartz, Intern, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2012
Reams of scholarship have been written on the contents of the Cairo Geniza, but in Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, authors Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole explore how the 1896 discovery itself changed the world of Jewish scholarship.
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