On loan to The Met The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Paperweights in the shape of crabs
In the fourteenth century, bronze artists excelled at casting not only vessels with archaic designs but also diverse sculptural objects. Fused together after more than six hundred years underground, these two crabs originally functioned separately as paperweights. Their apparent ability to scuttle away—evoked by the accurately defined pincers and legs—must have been a source of amusement and delight for their owner.
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