Page 193 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - New York City

ME TROPOLIT AN MUSEUM OF AR T  191

heraldic banners and shields.
Highlights include the armor Costume Institute
of gentleman-pirate Sir George The 31,000-piece collection of
Clifford, a favorite of Queen costumes and accessories has
Elizabeth I. The rainbow-colored expanded by over 23,000 items
armor of a 14th-century Japanese under an agreement with the
Shogun and a collection of Wild Brooklyn Museum (see pp238–41).
West revolvers that once There is no permanent display
belonged to gunmaker Samuel due to the fragility of the objects,
Colt are also exhibited here. but there are two special
exhibitions a year.
The collec tion spans five
centuries from the 17th century
to the present and is a definitive
compendium of fashionable
dress, from the elaborately
embroidered dresses of the
late 1600s to gowns from the
Napoleonic era. The designs
of Elsa Schiaparelli, Worth, and
Balenciaga are also inclu ded,
along with Ballets Russes Michelangelo’s studies of a Libyan Sibyl for
costumes and even David the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508)
Bowie’s sequined jockstrap.
The Old Plum, a Japanese paper screen The Art of Dress audio tour, and an incredible 1.2 million
from the early Edo period (about 1650) narrated by actress Sarah Jessica prints. The drawings collection
Parker, focuses on how artists is espe cially rich in Italian and
have used clothing to express French art from the 15th to
Asian Art identity and power. the 19th century. Specific
Many outstanding galleries The Institute is sophisticated exhibits of the drawings in
contain masterpieces of Chinese, in its understanding of this collection are shown
Japanese, Korean, Indian, and conservation techniques, with on a rotating basis because
Southeast Asian art, dating from a state-of-the-art laboratory. of the light-sensitive nature
the second millennium BC to of works on paper.
the 20th century. A full-scale Highlights among the 17,000
Ming-style Chinese scholar’s drawings include works
garden was built by by Michelangelo, Leo-
craftspeople from nardo da Vinci, Raphael,
Suzhou as part of the Ingres, Goya, Rubens,
first cultural exchange Rembrandt, Tiepolo,
between the United and Seurat.
States and the The encyclopedic
People’s Republic of print collection
China. The museum includes major works
also has one of the by virtually every
finest collections of master printmaker, from
Song and Yuan dynasty an early German wood-
paintings in the world, cut entitled Virgin and Child
Chinese Buddhist monu- to some of Dürer’s most
mental sculptures, fine accomplished works and Goya’s
Chinese ceramics and jade, The Giant. Influential gallery-
and an important display of the A 17th-century European owner Alfred Stieglitz’s
arts of ancient China. silk-and-satin doublet donation of his own extensive
The full range of Japanese arts collection of photographs
is represented in a breathtaking brought here such gems as
suite of eleven galleries Drawings and Prints Edward Steichen’s The Flatiron.
featuring chronological and These eclectic galleries began It formed the core of a photo-
thematic displays of Japanese as a gift of 670 pieces from graphy collection that is now
lacquer, ceramics, painting, Museum trustee Cornelius also particularly strong in
sculpture, textiles, and screens. Vanderbilt, in 1880. Today the Modernist works dating from
Indian, Southeast Asian, and Museum holds over 17,000 between the world wars.
Korean galleries display superb drawings, some 12,000 Ephemera such as posters
sculptures and other arts from illustrated books from both and advertisements form
these regions. Western Europe and America, another part of this collection.

190-191_EW_New_York_City.indd 191 4/3/17 11:41 AM