The Cloisters was described by Germain Bazin, former director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, as "the crowning achievement of American museology." The nucleus of its collection of the art and architecture of medieval Europe was formed by the American sculptor George Grey Barnard (1863–1938). The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased most of Barnard's collection in 1925—with funds given by John D. Rockefeller Jr.—with the intention of maintaining it as a branch museum. The Cloisters opened to the public with great fanfare in 1938.

Located on four acres overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park, the building incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters and from other monastic sites in southern France. Three of the cloisters reconstructed at the branch museum feature gardens planted according to horticultural information found in medieval treatises and poetry, garden documents and herbals, and medieval works of art, such as tapestries, stained-glass windows, and column capitals. Approximately 5,000 works of art from medieval Europe, dating from about A.D. 800 with particular emphasis on the twelfth through fifteenth century, are exhibited in this unique and sympathetic context. Renowned for its architectural sculpture, The Cloisters also rewards visitors with exquisite illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, metalwork, enamels, ivories, and tapestries.

Watch an introduction to The Cloisters video, or return to The Unicorn Tapestries main page.