This brooch is a luxury version of the kind worn by eastern Germanic women living along the Danube River in the 300s and 400s. It undoubtedly belonged to an aristocratic woman as part of a rich ensemble of gold jewelry consisting of armlets, rings, and collars with pendants.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bow Brooch
Date:400–450
Culture:East Germanic
Medium:Silver with gold-sheet overlay and garnets
Dimensions:Overall: 6 9/16 x 2 7/16 x 1 3/8 in. (16.7 x 6.2 x 3.5 cm)
Classification:Metalwork-Gold
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1947
Accession Number:47.100.19
R. Martins Reay, Brooklyn, NY (sold 1936); Sotheby's, London(July 28, 1936, no. 79); [ Brummer Gallery, Paris and New York (1936–sold 1947)]
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dark Ages, loan exhibition of early Christian and Byzantine art," February 20–March 21, 1937.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The Middle Ages: Treasures from The Cloisters and The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 18, 1970–March 29, 1970.
Chicago. Art Institute of Chicago. "The Middle Ages: Treasures from The Cloisters and The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 16, 1970–July 5, 1970.
Germanisches Nationalmuseum. "Germanen, Hunnen und Awaren: Schätze der Völkerwanderungszeit," December 12, 1987–February 21, 1988.
Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Archäologisches Museum. "Germanen, Hunnen und Awaren: Schätze der Völkerwanderungszeit," March 13–May 15, 1988.
New York. The Cloisters Museum & Gardens, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Treasures and Talismans: Rings from the Griffin Collection," May 1–October 18, 2015.
Kühn, Herbert. "Eine neue Fibel aus Szilágy-Somlyó." Ipek 11 (1936–37). pp. 142–43, fig. 26.
Catalogue of Egyptian, Greek, Indian and Roman antiquities, Native Art, etc.. London: Sotheby's, July 28, 1936. no. 79, p. 15, ill.
The Dark Ages: Loan Exhibition of Pagan and Christian Art in the Latin West and Byzantine East. Worcester, Mass.: Worcester Art Museum, 1937. no. 76, p. 34, ill.
Miner, Dorothy, ed. Early Christian and Byzantine Art: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 1947. no. 835, p. 163.
Ostoia, Vera K. "A Ponto-Gothic Fibula." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 11, no. 5 (January 1953). pp. 146–52.
Rorimer, James J., and William Holmes Forsyth. "The Medieval Galleries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 12, no. 6 (February 1954). p. 124.
Ostoia, Vera K. The Middle Ages: Treasures from the Cloisters and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1969. no. 28, pp. 68–9, 254.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: Dutton Publishing, 1970. no. 115, p. 151.
Mészáros, Gyula. "A regölyi korai népvándorláskori fejedelmi sír / Das Fürstengrab von Regöly aus der Frühvölkerwanderungszeit." Archaeologiai értesítő 97 (1970). pp. 85–86, 92, fig. 20, no. 10.
Foltiny, Stephen. "Archäologische Funde aus dem Karpatenbecken im Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York." Mitteilungen der österreichischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte 26, no. 1, part 2 (1976). p. 103, pl. 4.3.
Hibbard, Howard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. p. 144, fig. 263.
Brown, Katharine R. Guide to Provincial Roman and Barbarian Metalwork and Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1981. pp. 7–8, fig. 8.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983. no. 6, p. 340.
Shepard, Mary B. Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by Charles T. Little, and Timothy B. Husband. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. pp. 8, 32–33, pl. 19.
Menghin, Wilfried, Tobias Springer, and Egon Wamers, ed. Germanen, Hunnen und Awaren: Schätze der Völkerwanderungszeit. Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum, 1987. no. V.1.b, p. 217.
Brown, Katharine R. Migration Art, A.D. 300-800. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995. pp. 7–9, fig. 1.
Brown, Katharine R. "If Only the Dead Could Talk: An Update on the East German and Hunnish Jewelry Collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Ancient Jewelry and Archaeology, edited by Adriana Calinescu. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996. pp. 229–30, fig. 9.
Brown, Katharine R., Dafydd Kidd, and Charles T. Little, ed. From Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. p. 91, 357, fig. 5a, 9.1.
Eisenberg, Jerome M. "The New Byzantine Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Minerva 12, no. 3 (2001). pp. 24–26, fig. 10.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. p. 182.
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