Charango or jarana. Marcos Manufactory, Mexico, late 19th century. Wood, armadillo shell; L. 85.2 x W. upper bout 17.5 x W. lower bout 25.4 x D. 11.4cm (33 9/16 x 6 7/8 x 10 x 4 1/2in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889 (89.4.2881).
On view in the Musical Instruments galleries is an arresting stringed object, an armadillo shell for its back. Ken Moore, the Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge of Musical Instruments, spoke with me about this work.
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Photograph by Matthew Beers Reed via Flickr.
The current exhibition Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein's New York Photographs, 1950–1980 features candid photographs of New Yorkers, with each of Levinstein's subjects representing a particular neighborhood. In the thirty years since these photographs were taken, New York City's neighborhoods have changed dramatically: new buildings have appeared, businesses have opened or closed, and a new generation has moved in. What would Levinstein see in the people of New York today?
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Above: Giovanni da Milano (Italian, Lombard, active 1346–69). Christ and Saint Peter; the Resurrection; Christ and Mary Magdalen. Tempera on wood, gold ground; 9 3/4 x 24 7/8 in. (24.8 x 63.2 cm). Private collection (L.2010.13).
Two years ago I had the good fortune of being in Florence when, at the Accademia, which every tourist visits for its collection of sculpture by Michelangelo, there was a marvelous exhibition devoted to the great fourteenth-century painter Giovanni da Milano (Italian, Lombard, active 1346–69). I spent hours in the exhibition and it was there that I first saw Christ and Saint Peter; the Resurrection; Christ and Mary Magdalen. Who would have guessed that only one year later it would become available for purchase and that a friend of the Metropolitan would buy it and place it on loan to the Museum after its cleaning by the Museum's chief restorer, Michael Gallagher? It is currently on view in the European Paintings galleries, and will be through the fall.
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Above, from left to right: Hannah Sung, third place (tie); Daniel Salerno, second place; Selena Kim, first place; and Kai Smith, third place (tie).
After days of viewing the entries and hours of narrowing the field, we have chosen four winners of the Teen T-Shirt Design Competition inspired by the special exhibition American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity. (See my previous article for more information about the contest.) Together with Aimee Dixon, a fellow Museum educator, I first unpacked, sorted, and reviewed the design boards, with the help of other educators, event coordinators, and members of the Education staff. The American Woman curators, Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda, then selected the styles they felt best embodied the artistic vision of the exhibition. We then passed the designs to Patrick Robinson, head designer of Gap, and Hamish Bowles of Vogue magazine, who spent quite a long time debating, reviewing, and deciding which entries were the most fashion savvy.
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The Museum's Members just received their Summer Bulletin, which details the archaeological excavations in the ancient Near East that have been supported by the Metropolitan from 1931 to 2010. It reminds me that many people don't realize that the Met has been involved in the study of antiquity since the Museum's founding in 1870 (the Met's Egyptian Expedition began in 1906 and continued with extraordinary success for thirty years).
Above: Taq-i Kisra, the palace of King Khusrau I (r. 531–79), Ctesiphon, Iraq. Joint Expedition of the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931–32.
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Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973). Seated Harlequin, 1901. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. John L. Loeb Gift, 1960 (60.87). © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The signature image of the exhibition Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (closing August 15) is the Seated Harlequin, a masterpiece painted by Picasso when he was just nineteen years old. Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Chairman of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, spoke with me about the painting's imagery and style, as well as recent discoveries made by Metropolitan Museum conservators.
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News posted on
Friday, August 06, 2010
Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742-1792), Austrian. Wine Cooler (detail), 1781. Silver.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation Gift, 2002.
In this audio recording, Wolfram Koeppe—curator of the current exhibition Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered—tells the story of the spectacular Sachsen-Teschen silver service and describes the splendor of royal dining during the ancien régime. The exhibition remains on view through November 7.
Download the audio file.  (5.45 MB)
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