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Chester (Charles) Harding
American, Conway, Massachusetts 1792–1866 Boston, Massachusetts
36 1/4 x 28 in. (92.1 x 71.1 cm)
medium: Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY 20.75 1920
Rogers Fund, 1920
Each Roman household had a "lararium," or household shrine, in which small bronze figurines of deities, including "lares" (the divinities protecting the house) were displayed. The master of the house would make daily offerings at the shrine, as well as more ceremonial offerings on important occasions.
This small figurine was found together with six others (Walters 54.748-54.752 and 54.2290) in a "lararium" at Boscoreale, the site of a Roman villa near Pompeii. A "Genius" (or priest) stood before the household deities, Isis-Fortuna, Mercury, a seated Jupiter, Alexander Helios, and a standing Jupiter. These were divinities the family particularly venerated for the continuing good fortune of the household.
Roman
with base H: 3 9/16 x W: 2 1/8 x D: 1 1/8 in. (9.07 x 5.38 x 2.93 cm)
medium: bronze
culture: Roman
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
This pendant of Taweret is broken at the legs. Taweret was standing with both hands pressed to her sides and holding the hieroglyph for "protection."
Egyptian
H: 15/16 x W: 1/4 x D: 1/4 in. (2.38 x 0.58 x 0.64 cm)
medium: lapis lazuli
culture: Egyptian
dynasty: 30th Dynasty-Ptolemaic Dynasty
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Each of the four gospels in this book opens on a page with brilliantly illuminated borders depicting the author of the text as well as birds—principally peacocks, symbols of the immortality of the soul—and fountains, representing the fountain of life and the salvation of the soul. This volume consists of 428 leaves with texts in Greek. Its level of sophistication suggests that it was probably written and decorated in a monastery in Constantinople.
Byzantium, Constantinople
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum; leather binding
Sheet: 28 x 23 cm (11 x 9 1/16 in.)
Did you know...
Gospel books were carried in procession through Byzantine churches.
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Kids that read Succeed! Reading a book is a great excuse for peace and quiet. What will you be reading today on#InternationalLiteracyDay ?
High demand for shawabtys in the Late Period, a time when as many as 400 or more shawabtys were placed in the tomb with the deceased, gave rise to a specialized container for storing them: the shawabty box. This example is inscribed for the lady of the house, Ditamenpaankh, and was probably one of a pair originally made for her. The single-masted boat on the box's lid is perhaps an allusion to the pilgrimage of the deceased to the holy city of Abydos, the cult city of Osiris, king of the dead. The shawabtys inside are crude, mass-produced examples cast in an open mold. Made of terracotta, their blue paint imitates more costly shawabtys made of faience. As for the shawabty spell, it has been removed from its traditional location on the shawabty's front and relocated onto the sides of box, where it needed only to be written once, thus expediting production.
Egypt, Late period (715–332 BCE), Dynasty 25
terracotta
Overall: 5.7 x 1.6 x 1.1 cm (2 1/4 x 5/8 x 7/16 in.)
Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust
Size suggests that this ChavÃn-style mortar and pestle were not used to grind bulky staples like corn, but instead pigments or plant hallucinogens used in religious rites to achieve spiritual insight and communion with cosmic forces. This set may come from Pacopampa, a site in the northern highlands where elites adopted ChavÃn deities and worshiped them alongside local deities. These small sculptures illustrate the appeal and the spread of ChavÃn religion.
Peru, North Highlands, Pacopampa(?), ChavÃn style (900-200 BCE)
stone, pigment
Overall: 5.8 x 11 cm (2 5/16 x 4 5/16 in.)
In memory of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Humphreys, gift of their daughter Helen
Ya falta tan poco para salir!! =) aun asi extrañare la U.
YA FALTA POCO!!!
Copyright © 2007 kukurmusu8. Todos los derechos reservados
By the end of the 15th century, Venice had emerged as the major printing center in Europe, where books were printed in various languages to be shipped around the world. The city also became the great emporium for prints, and the woodcut developed beyond its humble origins as a popular art for simple pious imagery, playing cards, and later for book illustration. <em>View of Venice</em> epitomizes this new ambitious scope for the woodcut. This monumental print can be compared in scale only to a mural decoration and presumably served as a less expensive surrogate for paintings. The six sheets that make up the design would have been pasted either onto a canvas or the wall itself, resulting in the survival of few fine impressions like this one. The goal of the print was to depict Venice as seen from above. No single vantage point would have been sufficient, so a large team of surveyors climbed various towers and tall buildings to record small sections of the city. These individual views were combined to form the map that follows a single, though inconsistent, system of perspective. Unprecedented for its exactness of detail and difficulty of execution, <em>View of Venice</em> represents the first attempt to render the image of a city according to the laws of geometry.
Italy, early 16th Century
woodcut from six blocks on six sheets of paper
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund