The art and history of the Holy Land are presented here by distinguished members of the curatorial staff of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. A series of essays examines this land's rich complexity from prehistory through the Islamic conquest of A.D. 640, and almost two hundred works of art are discussed in texts that explore their cultural, historical, religious, and aesthetic significance. Maps, site photographs, and comparative illustrations add to the reader's appreciation of a land whose great intellectual force continues to mold today's world. Here the Holy Land's somber and joyous history is told in an especially appropriate way. The ancient inhabitants speak directly through their works of art—those objects, often small in size but always majestic in spirit, created to worship the divine, to propitiate malevolent spirits, to commemorate the dead, to delight the living. The region's history can be read in the foreign aesthetic influences that modified and enhanced a strong native style. The appearance of Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine elements indicates the cultural, sociological, and political changes, gradual at times and violent at others, that shaped the Holy Land. The art works discussed here tell of the great events, conflicts, and population movements that formed the Near East, but, as important, they embody the spiritual biography of a people whose religious philosophy became the foundation of Western civilization. Over many millennia a quest for the divine has been evident in the Holy Land. This religious impulse is as palpable in the gold plaque of a Canaanite goddess from the thirteenth century B.C. as in the synagogue mosaic from Beth Shean which was fashioned in the sixth century A.D. Many objects express a deep love of the natural world: necklaces of glowing carnelian beads that mimic lotus seeds; a plump but ferocious ivory lion; a mosaic pavement with fish frolicking across its surface. A yearning for the beautiful animates the most transcendent and the most mundane works. The same numinous spirit breathes in the noble Shrine of the Stelae from Hazor and in the shapely cups, oil lamps, and bowls that Jerusalemites used some two thousand years ago. Everyday household objects make our ancestors seem our near-contemporaries, but other works emphasize the chasm that separates us from the past. The extraordinary objects of the Judaean Desert Treasure, for example, have a great and touching beauty, but their meaning remains a profound mystery. A number of inscriptions, some of them of remarkable elegance, remind us of how deeply the written language of ancient Hebrew shaped this land's consciousness. The Israelites were the People of the Book, and their compulsion to set down their experience reached its greatest flowering in the Bible. It is thus fitting that Treasures of the Holy Land concludes with a discussion of the most ancient of biblical manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Perhaps the greatest archaeological discovery of this century, these scrolls have had an immense impact on the study and understanding of ancient Judaism and Christianity. This publication documents the landmark exhibition organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The works of art, most of which are displayed for the first time in the New World, are living messengers from an ancient and fruitful civilization; they speak to us of a past that continues to animate the present.

Associate Curator Jayson Kerr Dobney highlights the use of a cog rattle during Holy Week, and introduces readers to a notable example from the Museum's collection.

Assistant Museum Educator Molly Kysar discusses the Artists on Artworks program at the Met, currently celebrating its first anniversary.

Associate Curator Bradley Strauchen-Scherer writes about The Met's collection of shofars in time for the Jewish high holidays.

The Metropolitan Museum Journal is issued annually and publishes original research on works of art in the Museum's collection. Highlights of volume 52 include a study of the intertwined relationship between two late masterpieces by Andrea del Sarto, new attributions for seven Roman drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries, and a reevaluation of Horace Pippin's painting, The Lady of the Lake from the late 1930s.

Administrator Christina Alphonso discusses the significance of hazelnuts (once known as "cobill nuts") in medieval thought and their presence in the holiday decorations at The Cloisters.

Mellon Curatorial Fellow Matt Saba discusses archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld's depictions of wall paintings at Samarra, the ninth-century capital of the Abbasid dynasty.

Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor accompanies an exhibition that is the first comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century European tapestry. Conceived as a sequel to Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence (2002), this catalogue is also the first history of Baroque tapestry available in English. From the Middle Ages until the late eighteenth century, the courts of Europe lavished vast expenditure on tapestries made in precious materials after designs by the leading artists of the day. Yet, the art history establishment continues to misrepresent this medium as a decorative art of lesser importance. Tapestry in the Baroque challenges this notion, demonstrating that tapestry remained among the most prestigious figurative media throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, prized by the rich for its artistry and as a tool of propaganda. The secondary theme of the study is the stylistic development of tapestry between 1590 and 1720 and the contributions of Flemish, French, and Italian artists as they responded to the challenges and opportunities of the medium in unique and spectacular ways. Divided into chronological sections, the presentation examines the diaspora of Flemish weavers in the 1590s; the foundation of the Paris industry in the early 1600s; the innovative work of Peter Paul Rubens and his circle for the Brussels workshops between 1615 and 1660; the achievements of the Mortlake works for Charles I in the 1620s and 1630s; the parallel development of the Medici and Barberini manufactories in Florence and Rome; the creation of the Gobelins manufactory in Paris for Louis XIV; the development of the Beauvais workshop; and the renewed vigor of the Brussels industry in the 1690s and early 1700s. Drawing from collections in more than fifteen countries, Tapestry in the Baroque presents forty-five rare tapestries made between 1590 and 1720. About half of these derive from Flemish workshops, including such highlights of the Brussels tapestry industry as the Triumphs of the Church designed by Rubens for the Archduchess Isabella in 1626 and tapestries from the Austrian state collection designed by Jacob Jordaens and others in the 1630s and 1640s. Flemish weavers also played key roles elsewhere in Europe, establishing new enterprises and training native weavers, and the publication also features rare examples from these new workshops, including a stupendous throne canopy made for the King of Denmark in 1584, tapestries made at Mortlake for King Charles I of England in the 1620s, and tapestries from Delft, Munich, Florence, Rome, and Paris. Some of the most ambitious tapestries of the day were woven for King Louis XIV at the Gobelins manufactory, established in Paris in 1662, and the catalogue includes representative pieces from some of the especially celebrated design series. Approximately twenty-five designs and oil sketches by masters such as Rubens, Jordaens, Simon Vouet, Charles Le Brun, Pietro da Cortona, and Giovanni Francesco Romanelli further illustrate stylistic developments in tapestry design during this period.

Beginning with Paul Strand’s landmark From the Viaduct in 1916 and continuing through the present day, Photography’s Last Century examines defining moments in the history of the medium. Featuring nearly 100 masterworks from one of the most important private holdings of photography, the book includes works by Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, and Cindy Sherman, as well as a diverse group of important lesser-known practitioners. A fascinating interview with Ann Tenenbaum provides a personal account of the works, while the main text offers an essential history of photography that addresses the implications of calling this period the medium’s “last” century.

High School Intern Julia invites visitors to explore the Metropolitan's smaller exhibitions, which often allow for a quiet—and mostly private—experience of the objects.