Among the world's greatest technological and imaginative achievements is the invention and development of the timepiece. Examining for the first time The Metropolitan Museum of Art's unparalleled collection of European clocks and watches created from the late Renaissance through the nineteenth century, this fascinating book enriches our understanding of the origins and evolution of these ingenious works. It showcases fifty-four clocks, watches, and other timekeeping devices, each represented with an in-depth description and new photography of the exterior and the inner mechanisms. Among these masterpieces is an ornate sixteenth-century celestial timepiece that accurately predicts the trajectory of the sun, moon, and stars; an eighteenth-century longcase clock by David Roentgen that shows the time in the ten most important cities of the day; and a nineteenth-century watch featuring a penetrating portrait of Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Created by the best craftsmen in Austria, England, Flanders, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, these magnificent timepieces have been selected for their remarkable beauty and design, as well as their sophisticated mechanics. Built upon decades of expert research, this publication is a long-overdue survey of these stunning visual and technological marvels.

Velázquez's portrait of Philip IV, king of Spain, went back on view in the European Paintings galleries today after an absence of more than a year, following the completion of a particularly complex restoration.

On July 7, Ringo Starr's seventieth birthday, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will inaugurate a special display of his gold-plated snare drum that will remain on view through December 2010 in the Museum's second-floor Musical Instruments Galleries. On loan from Ringo Starr, it was originally presented to him by the Ludwig Drum Company during The Beatles' 1964 visit to Chicago when the legendary rock group was on its first tour of the United States.

Assistant Museum Librarian for Reader Services discusses Watson Library's collection of books on clocks and watches.

Carly Still, assistant horticulturist at The Cloisters, discusses the importance of beauty and fragrance in the medieval appreciation of flowers.

Managing Horticulturist Caleb Leech discusses medieval attitudes toward the gourd, the history of the fruit, and its presence in the Bonnefont Herb Garden at The Cloisters.

Associate Curator Kurt Behrendt summarizes his recent lecture series Gods and Goddesses, and provides readers with a resource for delving deeper into the topic of South Asia's great sculptural tradition.

A rare, recently excavated ancient Roman dining set consisting of twenty silver objects—one of only three such sets from the region of Pompeii known to exist in the world—and an important ancient Greek kylix (or drinking cup) have been installed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Galleries for Greek and Roman Art as part of an ongoing exchange of antiquities between the Republic of Italy and the Museum.

Developed in the early years of the twentieth century, Autochromes were the result of the first commercially viable color photographic process. Yet the dyes used to impart the color in Autochromes are so sensitive to light that typical exhibition conditions cause rapid and irreversible fading, which has led to the Metropolitan Museum's policy of not exhibiting these vulnerable photographs.

Artist in Residence Peter Hristoff highlights two works on view in Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible that speak to the artistic process of what to create and when a work is truly ever complete.