Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Statuette of a Woman Playing Crotales
Not on view
During both the Byzantine and the Islamic periods, female images signified abundance, fertility, intellectual pursuits, deities, and cities. Women also appear as court entertainers such as dancers, musicians, and courtesans.
This female dancer holds crotales (handled castanets), a musical instrument often used by the maenads in the Dionysiac revels and still used in North African music.
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