Object of the Day

This puppet is constructed with moveable joints, allowing both the horse and rider to strike a variety of gestures and poses. Puppeteers work from behind a cloth screen to operate the puppets, up to five feet from the ground. Part of a genre known as “the animals come forth” (sogo bò), this puppet was used to entertain children and young adults. Sogo bò is a tradition shared among several cultural groups in the Ségou Region of central Mali. This type of puppetry, which originated prior to 1890, is particularly suited to inventiveness and change, and continues to evolve through new performances into the present day. Secular in character, the performances are owned and enacted by members of the kamalen ton, the young men’s society.

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A pair of disembodied eyes float in the middle of a forest, gazing out toward something beyond the viewer’s line of sight. The naturalistic depiction of the tree on the right contrasts dramatically with the apparition of the eyeballs, which seem to emanate a glowing light that illuminates the forest clearing. With these strange contrasts, Odilon Redon transformed an otherwise familiar landscape into an uncanny realm.

Redon had been fascinated by scientific advancements that occurred during his lifetime, including botany, microbiology, and evolutionary biology. He was particularly interested in studies of optics in the 1870s, specifically the structure of the human eye and the sense of sight. At the same time, he also explored the more subjective side of vision: dreams, hallucinations, and seeing things in the mind’s eye. Thus, eyes appear frequently in Redon’s works, playing upon ideas of both the visible and the invisible.

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The main field of this hanging features the “Thousand Buddhas” motif representing the Buddha’s infinite availability, the actual number being insignificant. Here, 90 Buddhas stand in tall rectangular panels or seated in squares. The figures are worked in long stitches of multicolored silk satin, while their backgrounds, of several tones of apricot-colored silks in vertical lines, feature chevrons, swastikas, and other geometric patterns. The central area is surrounded on three sides by multicolored clouds in a border with similar grounds. The halos of the Buddhas and other small parts of the work are in appliqué; the ground of the embroidery is a fine white gauze.

This textile once took the form of a wide rectangular embroidered priest’s robe (kāsāya). Two large square-shaped sections were subsequently cut and reassembled one above the other, pieced together along with borders featuring a design of rocks, plants, waves, and clouds. In its original state, the textile was most likely presented by Chinese imperial officials to a high-ranking member of the Buddhist clergy in Tibet.

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A rearing horse and rider dominate the center of this canvas. A clown in white makeup and red cap hurries by amidst green and yellow stage lights. The ringmaster stands at bottom right while the viewer is positioned as a member of the audience behind a row of fellow circus-goers. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was attracted to the bohemian atmosphere found at the circus. In this flattened and compacted composition, he evoked the thrilling energy and vitality of the circus arena.

Today’s Object of the Day is currently on view in Concealed Layers: Uncovering Expressionist Paintings.

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Its hind legs tensed like a coiled spring and its long ears pulled back ready for flight, this black tailed hare encapsulates the dynamism so prized in the work of John James Audubon. The drawing reveals critical aspects of Audubon’s working methods at the time. Known for his exhaustive travels, he was famed for his exacting attention to detail and his practice of depicting animals in their native habitats.

In this case, however, the aging Audubon did not see the animal in the field but relied instead on memory, second-hand accounts, and preliminary sketches made by his son. The colors and textures were drawn from pelts. This may account for the slightly unnatural appearance of the animal, particularly in the awkward separation of its toes.

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A traveler has climbed a winding path and rests with his staff on a mountaintop to look out over a sea of clouds. Lone, back-turned figures appear frequently in German Romantic art of the late 18th to 19th centuries. These figures represent a longing for unity with the vastness of nature, a characteristic of this art movement. Carl Gustav Carus described his own mystical experience in the mountains, writing “you lose yourself in boundless space…your ego vanishes; you are nothing, God is all.”

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The sumptuous blue-and-gold surface of these ornamental vases exemplifies the 18th-century taste for gilded decoration and exuberant color. Rimmed in gold, the top openings resemble precious shells while the handles seem to have been formed by encasing myrtle leaves in gold. The vases carry narrative scenes based on compositions by the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805). Greuze’s Blind Man Fooled, 1755, in the collection of the Pushkin Museum, shows a young woman fooling her blind husband as she attempts to sneak her lover out of the basement and away before her spouse discovers her ruse. The scene on the vase at left, Mommy (La Maman), depicts a mother trying to feed her younger son while the older one grabs at the spoon intended for his brother.

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This costume for the Nō theater consists of rectangles (dangawari) in a variety of colors alternating with gold brocade. Large and small blocks are patterned with stalks of weeping cherry in full bloom against a background of clouds.

Known in Japanese as karaori (literally “Chinese weave”), this type of garment features a stiff brocade technique. Horizontal wefts in long stitches of glossed silk threads were floated over an unglossed silk twill ground, while flat threads covered with gold paper were bound close to the twill ground weave. Although the rigid brocade does not drape easily, it creates an angular effect that is striking on the theater stage.

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Loose yet assured brushwork, seen in gold edging along the shoulders, animates this painting of an unknown woman wearing Turkish clothing. Foreign attire was popular in London throughout the 18th century, and Angelica Kauffmann painted several versions of garments that were based on clothing worn in the Ottoman Empire. Western Europeans, including the British, appropriated and exoticized Middle Eastern societies, often using stereotypes, an embodiment of a colonial outlook towards non-European cultures.

For this portrait, the artist depicted a loose gown trimmed in white lace (gömlek), a more fitted long-sleeved salmon-colored garment with buttons down the front (yelek), and an outer long coat edged in lace and fashioned from plum-colored velvet (entari). Dated on the back of the canvas in what appears to be the artist’s own hand, this painting may have served as an advertisement to convince women in London society to have their portraits painted in Turkish dress.

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Working in bronze and stained glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany designed lamps that often imitated nature at its most elaborate. This elegant lotus-inspired lamp is a remarkable achievement of complex form and workmanship. Measuring twenty-six inches in diameter, the lamp’s expansive shade demonstrates the spectral qualities of Tiffany glass. Unlike many Tiffany lamps in which bases and shades were interchangeable, this piece was conceived as a single, unified floral form. The faceted structure of the parasol-like shade depicts the lotus’s foliage, and the base suggests the plant’s stem and roots. As in many of Tiffany’s works, the selection of the lotus and its integration into his design evoke a Japanese aesthetic.

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The carved image in this relief may represent a mythical being known as a winged genie. The figure ensures fertility and stability by pollinating a sacred tree with a cone and situla, a bucket with a handle. The cuneiform inscriptions over the surface of the sculpture expound the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II’s splendid endeavors and exploits. In the heart of his empire in the northern part of present-day Iraq, King Ashurnasirpal built huge royal palaces that were guarded by colossal statues of man-headed bulls. Endless reliefs decorating the interiors of the palaces portrayed the glory of the king and the mighty deities who protected him and his vast holdings.

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The flat horizon line and the subtle tones of the sky and reflective water surfaces are the major focus of this painting, rather than the humans or their bovine companions. Aelbert Cuyp uses delicate shifts in the color of the sky as well as a limited amber palette to describe the land and its inhabitants. While some of his contemporaries depicted a cloudy and misty sky, sunlight is often an important element in Cuyp’s pictures.

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This sculpture is both rough and elegant while radically simple and powerfully emotional. It evokes both the natural form of the stone from which it is carved and the living form it represents. John Flannagan was one of the first artists to practice “direct carving,” a reaction to the increasingly elaborate casting or modeling processes traditionally used to make sculpture. Flannagan would follow the shape, structure, color, and texture of a specific fieldstone to determine the sculpture he would make from it. As he wrote, “I would like my sculpture to appear as rocks, left quite untouched and natural, and . . . inevitable.”

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The son of a wheelwright, Samuel Gragg patented several techniques for making chairs with bentwood. Gragg’s technique used long strips of oak to form the curved back supports and the concave seat. These parts were made using steam and molds to bend the wood into exaggerated curves. According to Gragg’s patent application, the design rendered his chair “very elastic, very comfortable and agreeable to the person sitting in it.” Decoration such as the painted and gilded peacock feather on the back, and front feet painted like hooves helped this innovative design conform to the taste for classical-style furniture.

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In this hallucinatory landscape, the sun rises over a scene of swarming white insects and bizarre green-and-pink orbs. Roberto Matta moved to Paris in 1935 and became a prominent figure in the Surrealist movement. This later work showcases his continued interest in Surrealism’s automatic drawing and painting, where the hand moves freely, uninhibited by conscious thought. Matta described his paintings as, “the subconscious in its burning, liquid state; a conscious daytime substitution of the phenomena of dreams.”

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Chakaia Booker combined overlapping shapes produced with relief printmaking and lithography techniques to create this enigmatic image. The arranged and collaged printed papers relate to Booker’s sculpting process, in which she assembles large-scale works from cut recycled tires. Some of the elements in this work, especially the repetitive patterns in an inky palette, resemble tire treads or perhaps their imprint.

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The distinct colors—deep green and mustard yellow—of this mold-made ceramic cup are obtained from a lead glaze developed in the 1st century BC in the eastern Mediterranean. More fluid and less prone to cracking, this glaze was a distinct improvement over other contemporary glazing technologies. It has been suggested that these colors were specifically selected to emulate the patina of weathered bronze and gilded silver. This vessel shape is common in ceramic, glass, and metal.

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Filled with floral motifs, such as tumbling oak leaves and twisting vines, this coverlet represents the height of innovation and style in mid-19th-century textiles. The Jacquard loom attachment, a mechanical punch-card device that was cutting-edge technology at the time, made possible such intricate, large-scale patterns. John Eusebius Schneider was the first Missouri weaver known to have used one.

This coverlet’s combination of chrome green and dark blue is unusual. The choice of colors likely came from the clients who commissioned it. Or, possibly it was chosen by Schneider’s wife, Catherine, who spun and dyed the wool at their farm in St. Charles County, Missouri.

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This print invites viewers into a charming domestic interior, with a woman offering her visitor tea. Mary Cassatt was inspired by Japanese woodblock prints for their delicate washes of color and compressed space. After seeing an exhibition of Japanese prints in 1890, she wrote to Berthe Morisot, “Seriously, you must not miss that… I dream of it and don’t think of anything else but color on copper.” Soon after, she made a series of color prints, seeking to emulate the Japanese style on an etching plate.

Japan reopened trade with western Europe in 1853. Japanese artworks suddenly became available in Paris and other global markets, feeding a European obsession with objects from distant cultures. Many artists and collectors typically had little understanding of these objects’ original meaning. Yet some, including Cassatt, appreciated the unique style of Japanese art and drew from it in the development of their own modern artistic language.

In celebration of Virtual Art in Bloom, we are bringing you a floral-inspired work from the collection each Friday this month.
View all Virtual Art in Bloom programs here.

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Although a tea kettle and stand is a rather typical object for a 19th-century home, this example is exceptional in its lavish decoration. Weighing more than 10 pounds, it is ornamented from top to bottom with designs of foliage, scrolls, and scalloped shells. It has elements that are individually cast, then applied to the surface, and areas with chased designs, which are drawn into the surface with a pointed tool and a mallet. Other sections have repoussé design made by hammering out the surface from the back side.

The kettle and stand perfectly merge American craftsmanship with a European image. The central scene, depicting a man playing a lute for a woman and child, is inspired by 18th-century French prints. The object’s impressive size and decoration, however, highlight the quality and ambition of American silversmiths in this era.

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Four, large-beaked birds with long tails support a shallow, square basin. The shape is based on rectangular sacrificial vessels of an earlier period, however the sculptural quality of the birds and the hooked flanges are features of the vigorous later style. Inscriptions for signifying clans are commonly found on Shang dynasty bronzes.

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Yellow blossoms surround the top of this vase, while simplified green stems divide the lower body. The areas in between were pierced, then filled with a blue translucent glaze. Adelaide Robineau was known for exacting technical work, often carving into the vessel walls to achieve extraordinary thinness and translucency.

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The setting of this image is the ancient temple complex of Abu Simbel, cut into solid rock cliffs north of the present-day Egyptian and Sudanese border. Rather than trying to take in its enormity, Maxime Du Camp directed his camera to the figure of the Egyptian sun god Amun, carved in relief directly above the main doorway. This frontal view yields a documentary clarity, and Du Camp’s assistant stood at the lower left to provide a sense of scale. The temple was in disrepair and forgotten by the 6th century, then rediscovered, largely buried under sand, in the early 19th century.

Trained initially as a journalist, Du Camp kept extensive diaries of his adventures to supplement his images. He also traveled with the French writer Gustave Flaubert, and elements of their time together provided inspiration for fictional stories Flaubert published

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The pearl tones of this woman’s skin contrast beautifully with the painting’s rich jewel colors of green, orange, and red. The soft brushstrokes are well-suited to rendering the plush cushion, downy blanket, and hat plume, as well as the model’s dreamy mood.

William Glackens made a number of paintings that focus on a single female model, with titles that refer to a formal element, such as a color in this example. In this way, the artist reinforces the poetic quality of the subject.

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Near the rim of this jar, while the clay was still damp, David Drake wrote his name under the date June 6, 1857. Drake, the skilled African American potter who made this substantial 10-gallon storage jar, is renowned for inscribing his signature, dates, and occasionally a rhyming verse on hundreds of utilitarian ceramics. His hand is also visible where his fingers gripped the base as he coated, dripped, and splashed the vessel with brown- and ochre-colored glaze. Drake was born into slavery and worked daily while enslaved in potteries around Edgefield, South Carolina. He incised his ceramics at a time when laws prohibiting literacy among enslaved people were common. In that light, his powerful ceramics are defiant expressions of literacy, authorship, and creativity in the face of slavery.

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Made from a betel palm leaf, this fan is painted on both sides. On one side are blossoming orchids looming over a rock, while on the other side more orchids emerge from the tip of the fan. The artist’s inscription includes four large characters which refer to orchids as symbols of a perfect gentleman’s dispositions: integrity, nobility, humility, and self-restraint.

This object, created for everyday use, was elevated to fine art through the addition of painting by one of Japan’s greatest literati artists of the modern era. Tomioka Tessai brought new vitality into an old tradition through creative manipulations of traditional subjects, forceful brushwork, and expressive color. Tessai was a philosophical and ethical individual who, despite enormous fame, managed to live a quiet life, completely devoted to his studies.

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Energetic gestures of vivid red, yellow, white, and silver seem to fight in a messy brawl against a black background. To achieve this effect, Frank Wimberley incorporated cut pieces from other examples of his work. This technique was utilized by some of the earliest collage artists in the 20th century. Deckled edges, splattered paint, and scratches into existing brush marks add further dimension to the varied surface.

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Stylized streams of water—chains of squares and triangles and waving rivulets—form shimmering arches across this textile’s burgundy ground. Abstracted blossoms bubble up from the base of the jets in a lively floral froth. In the 1910s and ’20s, French designer Édouard Bénédictus translated natural forms into complex, geometric flat patterns for textiles, wallpaper, carpets, and inlaid leather. Presented at the 1925 Paris World’s Fair (L’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes), Fountains covered the walls of a grand reception room in an imagined French embassy.

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Rosa Bonheur was known for her careful study of animals and even maintained stables at her Paris studio. She was a pioneering feminist who enjoyed notoriety by dressing publicly in men’s clothes and smoking cigars. This work represents a relay hunt whereby riders would use fresh groups of horses to relieve their exhausted animals. Bonheur has precisely rendered the anatomy of the horses’ forms as well as the sheen of their coats in brown, white, and gray.

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This grand pair of doors most likely came from the convent of Santa Isabel in Toledo, Spain. The large doors would be opened only on special occasions, while the smaller sets of double doors in the lower half of each panel were for daily use. The inlaid design covering their surface is the lazo of ten, comprised of expanding and interlocking ten-pointed stars. Originally, the huge iron throw-bolts and studded rivets were covered with gilt decoration.

These doors are a magnificent example of the style known as Mudéjar, a term used to describe Spanish Muslims living under Christian rule. The intricate inlay on these doors, created from small pieces of wood pieced together in complex geometric shapes, is a technique originating in the Islamic world that remained popular in Spain for centuries after the political defeat of Muslim rulers. Such inlay was considered to be especially suitable for religious buildings of every persuasion because of its conspicuous expense and visual appeal.

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This decorative screen made for placement on a desk or table has a square marble panel at the center surrounded by a wooden frame. In the image, two figures in European clothing are kneeling in front of a table with three officials. One official appears to be affixing a seal and signature to a document. Looking on is another figure in regal clothing seated at right, flanked by attendants and other officials nearby. This narrative imagery resembles those of sinners begging for mercy in traditional Chinese Buddhist illustrations of the Ten Kings of Hell. However, the presence of figures in European clothing does not have a clear explanation and awaits further research. On the back of the marble panel is an unrelated poetic inscription about traveling in a landscape, written in semi-cursive script with the remnants of two seals impressed in red. The panel’s frame consists of 10 rectangular ornamental sections, each enclosing a quatrefoil shape using an openwork technique.

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Bright yellows, greens, and pinks evoke the colors of spring and give this woman’s face an almost flowerlike appearance. European artists had personified the four seasons as women for centuries, but that was not Alexei Jawlensky’s intent. He believed that a painting’s colors inspired an emotional response in its viewer. The woman’s blushing red cheeks and bold mouth, outlined in yellow, suggest love and affection —feelings associated with spring.

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On the battlefield, archers often carried a shield called a pavise. It could be set vertically against a support and was large enough for a foot soldier to crouch behind it while readying his bow or crossbow. Shields are among the oldest forms of defensive armor. They were part of a knight’s equipment until full plate armor was adopted. Less well-equipped knights and other troops continued to use shields for a longer time.

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This delicate, but confidently executed drawing shows the early artistic beginnings of one of the most revered Impressionist painters, Camille Pissarro. Born on the Caribbean Island of St. Thomas, he was sent to high school in France between 12 and 17. There, he took drawing lessons and visited the Louvre Museum, where he absorbed the history of European art. On his return to his native St. Thomas, he continued to draw, while also working in his family’s business. His French teacher advised him to draw palm trees—advice he took in this work, where the trees subtly dominate the scene. Pissarro was a voracious draftsman from his earliest days, and his output of drawings as well as prints is large and wide-ranging.

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This portrait depicts Anne Stafford, a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, first wife of King Henry VIII of England. Anne is shown as properly devout, holding a rosary in her lap. Her lavish attire is similar to other members of Henry’s court with like social standing. Anne’s delicate linen headscarf, secured by straight pins, her stiff bodice, and pleated sleeves with fur coverings, reflect the fashion of both Bruges (in present-day Belgium) and London, England, in the early 16th century. A companion portrait of Anne’s husband, George Hastings (first Earl of Huntingdon), also painted by Ambrosius Benson is in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

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This powerful head cast of solid copper has a hollow in the back so that it could be attached to a larger object. The head is brought to life with inlaid eyes of lapis lazuli and shell. It was probably part of a copper relief or a three-dimensional figure that protected the façade or interior of an early temple. The bull’s massive head is emphasized by a stocky muzzle and shortened horns. The addition of a curled, wide beard looks curiously natural on an animal that symbolized the sky god An. As the embodiment of fertility and power, the bearded bull served as an ever-present symbol of divine protection and royal might through centuries of ancient Near Eastern art.

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The themes that most interested Winslow Homer throughout the 1870s – rural life, childhood, and the disappearing one-room schoolhouse – are depicted here. Homer had visited this rural New England schoolroom the year before he painted it. The picture is filled with an array of details-students in various states of attentiveness, fresh flowers on the teacher’s desk and wilted ones on the floorboards, lunch pails in the far corner, the teacher’s hat hanging from a nail above the chalkboard, and the warm glow of sunlight shining through the windows. Within the carefully organized composition, the teacher commands the room from her desk. Students of all ages line the room in a horizontal band, with girls on one side of the room and boys on the other, except for the crying boy sitting alongside the girls.

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An explosion of brushstrokes hides the idyllic landscape of the Walchensee, an alpine lake located in the far south of Germany. Look closer and you might see the artist’s daughter in a white dress running past a stand of beeches at center right. Behind her, a hotel rooftop marks the edge of the lake’s expanse. The Walchensee was Lovis Corinth’s retreat in his final years and the site of his mesmerizing works that dissolve into abstraction.

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This informal summer court robe was made from dark blue gauze to be worn by a prince of the first or second rank. The main motif of nine four-clawed dragons (mang), one of which is hidden under the front flap, is couched in gold and colored silk threads. The dragons chase pearls with crimson flames amidst gold clouds, interspersed with red bats, floral sprays, and other auspicious motifs. The hem has a design of wavy gold bands of “standing water” (lishui) couched with gold threads and decorated with floral sprays embroidered with colored silk threads in satin stitch. The garment is unlined except for the interior of the sleeve extensions and cuffs, which are lined with light blue silk damask.

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The spread of the railways across Europe and America was one of the enduring preoccupations of nineteenth-century photography. Edouard-Denis Baldus produced this striking photograph of a line near the Rhone River for an album documenting a new service from Lyon to the Mediterranean Sea sometime around 1859. Made up of finely detailed contact prints, it has been described as the most beautiful photographic album of the nineteenth century, and this image, which shows the recently constructed tracks and an accompanying telegraph line, is one of the finest prints from the album.

As with most early photographs, the chemistry used to make this image was overly sensitive to ultraviolet light. This caused the sky to appear white and featureless in the picture. Baldus knew how to use this limitation to his advantage. The sky becomes a strong graphic element in the picture: a powerful, abstract form echoing the shape of the land.

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An angel kneels at left, having just entered Mary’s bedchamber to tell her that she will bear Jesus, the son of God. The angel’s white robe is reminiscent of the contemporary garments worn by the acolytes who assisted priests in celebrating Roman Catholic Mass. The meticulously detailed jeweled cape refers to the glories of heaven and also reminds worshippers of the ritual commemoration of Jesus’ death that takes place at every church altar. Mary, who according to Gospel accounts was reading the book of Isaiah, reacts to the arrival of her holy visitor. Her gesture and the fluttering pages of her open Bible suggest her surprise.

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With gold hues and blue accents, a whirling design of fantastic creatures flanks a central coat of arms representing the Spanish nobleman Fernando Ruiz de Castro, (1548–1601). The patterns reflect wall decorations from the ancient Palace of Nero, unearthed in Rome in the late 15th century.

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Antelope-horn whistles such as this, with finely executed miniature sculptures, belonged solely to banganga, or ritual specialists, and certain chiefs. The whistles were important components of minkisi, or medicines, among a nganga’s ensemble of implements, and often were attached to larger bundled and figural minkisi as well. Minkisi and banganga may be metaphorically related to the hunt, in terms of their power to assist in vanquishing wrongdoing.

Kongo game hunters and ritual practitioners alike use horns of the duiker antelope (Silvicapra grimmia) as whistles for their respective pursuits. Music is integral to ritual proceedings. Multi-layered sounds and rhythms emanating from such instruments as drums, gongs, bells, and the human voice, as well as whistles, are critical to invoking the presence of spirits.

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This censer’s extravagant shape and forms exemplify the overblown and highly decorative style of the late 18th century. Only imperial dragons inhabit the body; lesser sea creatures are relegated to the foot of the vessel. The ungainly proportions of this vessel were misinterpretations of Western art. This censer was an imperial commission from the imperial workshops and likely decorated the interior of a Western-style Chinese palace.

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This still life painting of a fan, bowl, and seed pods seems washed in cool light. The surface on which the objects rest and the background beyond them are mottled and indistinct, offering little sense of setting or place. By selecting such a simple subject for his composition, Emil Carlsen draws attention to the dry texture of the pods and bowl, the blue floral design adorning the fan, and its delicately shaped sticks.

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Covered with rich embellishments, including cherubs, grapevines, goats, bees, and shells, this opulent object was intended for ceremonial display. Its decoration celebrates Bacchus, the ancient Roman god of wine. The sheer exuberance of the forms, most notable in the arching figures that almost break free of the cup’s surface, exemplifies the joyous revelry of 18th-century Rococo art. This lavish cup and cover were cast in silver and then finished by adding texture to the grape leaves, the goats’ fur, and the other ornamentation. Although based on forms in the everyday world, the final ensemble is definitely not something found in nature.

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The elevated horizon line flattens the sense of depth in this seascape, while at the same time the spontaneous ink marks show a sensitivity to depicting atmospheric conditions. In early June 1888, Vincent van Gogh made his only excursion to the Mediterranean Sea, to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. At the beach, where fisherman worked and kept their boats, he made several quick sketches.

Drawings are made for all kinds of reasons, and he used some of his sketches from the beach later as studies for paintings. The circumstances of the drawing however are reversed — it is in fact a replica of a painting that was made while in Saintes-Maries, perhaps even on the beach. Although van Gogh frequently included informal sketches of his paintings in his letters, this more formal independent drawing was sent to a fellow artist in hopes that he might purchase the work.

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Lavishly carved, the rich and fluid relief sculpture adorning this lidded box reveals male and female ancestral figures. On the base, shown to the right, two male figures flank a female figure at center. Their heads extend from either end of the container to form knobs, which allowed it to hang from the rafters of a Maori home. Household residents typically viewed the boxes from below.

Created primarily to hold the white-tipped black feathers of the now-extinct huia bird, these boxes also stored personal adornments made of materials such as wood, bone, greenstone, and whale ivory. Although a container for taonga (treasures), a wakahuia was itself a cherished object.

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This view of a goatherd overseeing his charges demonstrates Adam Pynacker’s mastery of color as a means to capture the light and atmosphere of the Roman countryside. By contrasting the pale, tan tones of the vines on the right against the darker background, and varying the reds and blues in the fabrics of the goatherd’s coat and belongings, he is able to capture the rich feeling of the dense afternoon sun as it washes across the southern landscape.

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This screen features chrysanthemums (kiku in Japanese) and autumnal plants (akikusa, literally “autumnal grasses”) against a gold background enlivened with golden clouds. The chrysanthemums are shown in three distinct colors: white, orange, and red. The petals of the white chrysanthemums were painted in a raised technique called moriage. The white-flowering variety of the bush clover (shirohagi; Lespedeza japonica) in the lower right corner, a favorite motif among Japanese poets since ancient times, is associated with melancholy and unrequited love. Blue Chinese bellflowers (kikyō; Platycodon grandiflorus) also animate the lower right while clumps of delicate Japanese silver grass (susuki; Miscanthus sinensis) emerge from behind the chrysanthemums at the back.

Together, the bush clover, Chinese bellflower, and Japanese silver grass are three of the so-called “seven grasses of autumn” (aki no nanakusa) and reinforce the seasonal theme. At the lower left corner is a round I’nen seal impressed in red. Tawaraya Sōtatsu (1570–1643), one of the founders of the Rinpa school, first used this seal, and it continued to be used by successive artists in his workshop.

This screen was the first Japanese painting to enter the Museum’s collection in 1920. The Museum is grateful to the Sumitomo Foundation in Tokyo, Japan, for providing a generous grant to fund the full-scale conservation and remounting of this screen at Nishio Conservation Studio in Washington, D.C.

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Throughout Ed Clark’s work, the interplay of color is paramount. In Untitled (Bahia Series), layered and adjacent atmospheric fields of magenta, orange, yellow, and aquamarine create complex visual relationships. Clark often credits his environment as being the catalyst for new, unexpected chromatic explorations. Since 1971, he has completed multiple working trips abroad to Greece, Nigeria, Mexico, Martinique, Brazil, and China, among other locations, to inform his art. While in the Bahia region of Brazil, the area’s coastal light inspired a series of works including this one.

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In this painting, curving, tubular shapes and light colors evoke not only breeze-struck birch trees in early morning light but the sensuous lines of the human torso as well. Georgia O’Keeffe developed a personal language of semi-abstract forms to suggest the moods of nature. Her in-laws kept a summer home at Lake George in upstate New York, which was the site for the imagery seen in this work.

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The size of this ram’s head helmet indicates that it was meant to be worn for ceremonial purposes rather than in actual battle. It was made by hammering a single sheet of bronze, which makes it extremely light and unsuitable as actual armor. Additional decoration was added using a series of common metalworking techniques such as repoussée, punching, tracing, and engraving. The ram’s head on top, whose horns, ears, and eyes have been restored, is mirrored by the attached ram’s head cheek pieces. The selection of the ram to adorn a military-style helmet is fitting since the animals have a double-layered skull which helps protect them from injury. Elaborate helmets such as this are quite rare.

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The Belgian painter Alfred Stevens was a good friend of Manet and Degas, and like both of those artists, painted scenes of fashionable modern life. Here, a woman in an elegant pink dress looks abstractly out to sea while her straw hat and gloves lie on the table and her pet dog sits nearby. The scene takes place at the Norman port of Le Havre; steamboats, a sign of modernity, are visible in the distance.

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This seemingly straightforward image depicts a woman standing in front of a house and a tree. However, Edvard Munch imbued the picture with psychological meaning.  The moonlight bathes the woman’s face in a silvery light, giving it a ghostly appearance, while also casting an ominous black shadow behind her.

Munch helped revive the centuries-old medium of woodcut in the late 1800s. He exploited its expressive potential through roughly cut lines combined with accents of color. However, it was Munch’s innovative printing technique that was most significant: he cut the block into pieces that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, allowing him to use different colors and inks on each separate piece. He also printed another block with visible woodgrain on top of the image. The texture creates a thin veil, adding to its otherworldly appearance.

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Painted in the long, elegant strokes of Kufic script, this plate’s inscription is among the most beautiful examples of calligraphy from the early Islamic period. The elegant inscription decrees that “Planning before work protects you from regret.” The plate is one of a group of vessels that admonish the owners and their guests to be assiduous, careful, and virtuous in simple yet profound mottoes by which one might live a good life. The white slip body on which the calligraphy appears is related to Chinese porcelains and stonewares imported to Baghdad, the seat of power and commerce in the early Islamic world. The white slip, or liquefied clay, was painted over the surface of the vessel to mask its coarse body and to suggest coveted Eastern porcelains. Applying ornamental calligraphy to the expansive white surface created designs that were bold and appealing.

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This floating, crystal-encrusted branch is a contemporary chandelier, commissioned by the Austrian crystal manufacturer, Swarovski. As with chandeliers from other eras, nature was Tord Boontje’s point of departure. His work is inspired by the romantic decoration on 17th and 18th-century objects, while his use of tiny blue LED lights wrapped around a branch-shaped form places Night Blossom firmly in the 21st century. Boontje’s designs are like jewelry: they are about romance and ornament.

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This jar with a globular body and a short neck is decorated with five applied rows of grooved floral petals like those of a chrysanthemum. Each petal is attached to the body so as to ensure a definitive curve and ends in a small pointed tail pressed onto the contour of the jar. The rows end well above the thick foot and below the slightly incurved mouth rim. Dipped twice in white slip—clay thinned with water—and covered with a very thin clear glaze, the surface is predominately matt and resembles cake icing. The slips end in two straight lines low on the body while the clear glaze drips toward the foot and is also applied as a thin coating on the interior of the vessel.

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An elegant woman poses in profile. Though the painting’s small size and close view would suggest a certain intimacy, she seems quite remote and absorbed in her own thoughts. In late 19th-century America, women were understood to maintain ideals of truth and beauty, which the woman in this painting embodies. She is presented more as an object to be enjoyed for its refinement, like the graceful Empire chair, antique gown, and magnificent gilded frame surrounding the painting.

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Paper itself is transformed into the light that streams across the lower left of this print, illuminating the figure of St. Jerome absorbed in reading. Around the figure of the Christian saint, Rembrandt’s inventive facility in printmaking is on display. Dark, velvety drypoint lines represent the mane of the lion, Jerome’s companion. These marks contrast with the tremendous variety of etched patterns that describe a natural and built landscape inspired by the work of 16th-century Venetian artists. Rembrandt engaged with a long history of representing St. Jerome in European art but only indirectly alluded to his fame as the first translator of the Bible into Latin. Instead, Jerome sits here as a model of the peace promised by a contemplative life.

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For his Casa Milà apartment building in Barcelona, Gaudi designed furnishings, ceramic floor tiles, and wrought-iron window grilles that complemented his sculptural treatment of the building. Many of these forms were inspired by aquatic themes; unlike some of his contemporaries, Gaudi did not copy nature but sought its essences. This clock is one of several similar versions made for the Casa Milà. Like the building’s undulating façade, the clock appears as a malleable mass, stretched downward by the pull of gravity. Its asymmetrical distortions create an illusion of movement: the clock could, in fact, be a commentary on time, and even on life itself.

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The body of this bottle is decorated with four roundels containing peacocks, a very popular motif in Iranian textiles during late antiquity. The migration of motifs from one medium to another is characteristic of Islamic art. On one side of the vessel, the peacocks are facing each other, whereas on the other side they are facing the same direction. To form this decoration, the glass was blown into a two-part mold, indicated by the seam down the side of the vessel.

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Sonia Gramatté lays on a sofa in her husband’s studio, in front of a table set for coffee. Her reclining pose and questioning expression suggest Walter Gramatté may have woken her from a nap. The strong shadow across her forehead gives the otherwise ordinary scene an air of menace. Sonia was an accomplished musician and composer who shared the struggles of an artist’s life with Walter. He made more than 100 portraits of her during their marriage, which was cut short by his death from tuberculosis at 32.

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Sir Frank Bowling worked the surface of this canvas with clear acrylic gel, using a spatula or palette knife to mix in pearlescent pigments and bright colors. During a decade living in New York in the 1960s, Bowling acquired Abstract Expressionists’ fondness for creative and experimental paint application techniques. In the title Fishes, Wishes and Star Apple Blue, Bowling referenced the deep indigo color of the star apple, a fruit native to the Caribbean region, and his childhood in Guyana.

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Scrolling and scalloped ribbons of feathers and foliage snake down this chintz textile. The intricate, meandering design is a response to the so-called “lace pattern” woven silk fabrics made in Europe in the early 18th century. One of four panels, an English East India Company trade stamp on the hanging from the same set at the Minneapolis Institute of Art suggests the entire lot was destined for the English market where fabrics with light-colored backgrounds were especially fashionable.

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Flowers that bloom for a very short time and exotic shells arouse the sensual pleasures of sight, smell, and touch. Fifteen separate blossoms represent twelve different species in this still life. Balthasar van der Ast is credited with inventing the type of flower painting that included shells, and this early example is so exact that specialists can identify specific varieties. These blossoms, however, do not flower at the same time, reminding us that this seemingly realistic depiction is actually a lovely contrivance only possible in the painter’s fantasy realm.

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A bearded Spanish man in rustic clothing stands with cross in hand alongside a stone ledge that forms a simple shrine. Ignacio Zuloaga represented this lonely figure with a meditative dignity, suggesting a comparison with the Christian hermit St. Paul of Thebes. Zuloaga was a prominent artist who enjoyed great success not only with views of his native Spain but also with society portraits of the wealthiest families in the United States.

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The design on this armor features a fierce wolf-like beast that fills the space, bares its huge teeth and darts its tongue out like fire. Its tail terminates in a serpent’s head that has large ears; its legs end in huge, three-talon claws. Bold armorial decorations, probably originally painted in bright, simple colors, would have struck fear in enemy soldiers. The disc is one of three bronze discs in the Museum’s collection that were hammered with remarkable repoussé decoration and may have been the central elements of a set of body armor or shield bosses, the strong outward-projecting covers mounted in the center of shields. Each disc was affixed to a leather or wooden substructure with a series of large decorative rivets that embellished the circumference.

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This superb impression is based on an ancient description of a lost allegorical painting by the Greek artist Apelles. The lost painting, known as The Calumny of Apelles, expresses truths about calumny, or the telling of lies to ruin someone’s reputation. Apelles painted it after he himself had nearly been put to death because of a rival’s slander. Ghisi’s engraving recreates the allegory by depicting a judge with large donkey ears sitting at right. He is advised by two female figures who represent Ignorance and Suspicion. The judge extends his hand to Calumny, who approaches with a burning torch in her left hand and with her right hand drags the youthful Innocence, who lifts his hands in despair. Envy, Treachery, and Deceit bring Calumny closer to the long-eared man. Fortunately, Truth and Time appear as two small figures in a cloud in the background, implying that the unjustly accused will be vindicated.

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This textile has a narrow valance falling over a wide lower section. The bottom portion features three blue-scaled dragons amidst multicolored clouds rising above green waves. The central dragon clasps a flaming pearl representative of spiritual energy, wisdom, prosperity, and power. On the pleated valance above are 11 roundels with kui-dragons in blues and greens on a swastika-fret ground of the same apricot-colored silk floss forming the ground of the lower section. The textile is designed to be wrapped around three sides of a table, with five roundels facing forward and three each on the sides. The white plain-weave gauze ground is completely embroidered with multicolored floss silks in a technique called counted stitch, which is even more time-consuming than silk tapestry (kesi).

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With sunken, wrinkled cheeks and snaggled teeth, this object depicts a character known as Huehueteotl or the Old God, one of the oldest deities of central Mexico. The basin on top of the head may have been used for keeping coals or incense hot. Roughly carved from local igneous rock, the figure and basin symbolically and materially compressed the fearsome power of the volcanoes that ring the Valley of Mexico into the thin, hunched body of an old man. Objects such as this one are found in large numbers at the site, indicating that the Old God was very important to all members of Teotihuacan society, from the rulers to the ruled. Often found on patios, braziers may also have been used in rituals when residents renovated their living quarters.

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The body of the murdered Assyrian general Holofernes forms the focal point in this oil sketch, part of Luca Giordano’s last cycle of paintings. Holofernes led an army that besieged the city of Bethulia, home to the beautiful Jewish widow Judith. Having accepted the general’s invitation to dine, Judith beheaded him when he fell into an inebriated sleep. Standing as the central figure in this painting, Judith displays the trophy head to rouse the dispirited Israelites.

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The smokestacks of ships loom over the French city of Boulogne and spew exhaust into its polluted air. Below, fishermen trudge home through dark streets past a woman who the artist has posed to suggest she is a prostitute. Boulogne’s seedy port attracted Frans Masereel, who admired the tenacity of the people he met there. His primary medium of black-and-white woodcut inspired the painting’s blocky, jagged shapes and dark colors, which invest his subjects with dignity.

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With its undulating seat and supports made of molded plywood, this lounge chair is innovative for its construction and ergonomic design. The chair offered the “scientific relaxation of every part of the body.” Architect Marcel Breuer is best known for developing chromium-plated steel tubing as a support for chairs and tables while he was an instructor at the Bauhaus school of architecture and design in Germany during the 1920s.

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Dancing above ocean waves, a celestial dragon chases a flaming jewel of wisdom. The sinuous, serpentine body of the creature twists and turns, thrusting the dragon’s head toward the viewer in a show of ferocity and intensity. Displayed against a pure white ground, the colorful decoration of this vase is notable for the clarity of its enamel colors and the vigor of its design.

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The radiant glow from a setting sun silhouettes low hanging clouds. The light also reflects on shallow water, whose meandering path recedes back through flat, salt marshes. Located near popular tourist spots, these quiet marsh areas were an unusual subject for American landscape painters at the time, who typically depicted grandiose mountain vistas. Many interpret these scenes as a visual respite, a meditative salve, for the trauma of the Civil War (1861–65).

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In this drawing, Max Klinger presented two sun-drenched ancient landscapes. In the left portion, two centaurs, hybrid creatures who were part human and part horse, battle fiercely in a grassy plain. The centaurs reappear in the right portion, where the figures almost disappear into the arid, rocky landscape. Klinger incorporated architectural elements like gold columns and the decorative frieze to frame these scenes and enhance his overall scheme.

This study was part of a decorative commission for the vestibule of a villa belonging to the Austrian jurist Julius Albers. It was Klinger’s first such project, and he was given almost free rein in decorating the space with wall paintings and sculptures. He sought to create a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art that unified architecture, painting, sculpture, and ornament into a cohesive whole. This model is all that remains of the mural, as the room was eventually dismantled and the paintings based on this study were destroyed in World War II (1939–1945).

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This brilliant red silk satin skirt is embroidered with floss silks and couched with gold thread on panels with flowers, auspicious emblems, bats, waves, and rocks. These motifs are bordered by bands of stylized dragon scrolls in blue and white. When the skirt is wrapped around the body, the two decorated flat panels appear at the front and back. The embroidered decoration is concentrated across the lower edge of the skirt, which remains the only visible area under the calf-length upper garment that would be worn with it.

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Irawo II is a powerful image of Irawo, a Yoruba ruler from southwestern Nigeria. Details in this painting highlight connections between royalty, nature, and the divine world. Irawo wears a beaded crown featuring a group of birds on top. These birds, echoed by the bird-of-paradise flower, are symbolic as mediators between the earthly and divine realms in Yoruba belief. Chiefs such as Irawo are considered semi-divine. Currently based in North Carolina, Wole Lagunju produces portraits which are deeply informed by his Yoruba heritage.

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Columns of concentric blue-and-red diamonds run vertically up the central section of this textile. In narrow bands at top and bottom, connecting lines establish a contrasting, horizontal orientation.

For centuries, Diné weavers specialized in creating textiles for trade. This style of wearing blanket, with a vertical orientation and bold pattern, was popular through much of the 19th century.

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This portrait presents a confident young man seated before an acid-green knotted drapery. A bearded man dripping with water reclines in the background, probably intended to represent an ancient river god. Beside him, an opened flower blossom supports a small female figure. Together the man and blossom represent the city of Florence, which is located on the Arno River, and has a name derived from the Italian word for flower. The portrait embodies the complex aesthetic of 16th-century Mannerism as seen in its strong color, the man’s elegant, elongated hands, and the unusual hues in the sky. The Mannerist style was grounded in artifice, that is, it emphasized artistic invention over the slavish imitation of nature. The obvious artificiality of the painting makes clear the artist’s abilities at rendering pleasing forms and surprising chromatic combinations.

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his sensitive portrait of an unknown man stands as one of the most dignified 17th-century European representations of an African person. It is the only secular work known to have been sculpted by Melchior Barthel. The bust exemplifies the artist’s mastery of flamboyant carving and bold color contrast. The sculpture was made in Venice when Barthel created a series of four colossal African figures for the tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro (1589–1659). Bending beneath the enormous weight of the ensemble, the tomb figures are dehumanized as they perform the load-bearing role of inanimate architecture.

It has long been assumed that Bust of a Man records the likeness of a model who posed for Pesaro’s tomb. Or it might be a head study for which the artist used dark-hued marble to depict a generalized — yet idealized — African man. Whatever the intent, the bust is different in character from the figures on the tomb.

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Frank Dillon captures the grand statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III and his wife which still stand on the plain of Thebes (today known as Luxor) in Egypt. A sense of desolate solitude is heightened by the inclusion of a camel’s skeleton in the foreground. Dillon produced this painting shortly after his first visit to Egypt in 1854. The frame is original to the picture and is decorated with orbs and eagles’ wings at the center and corners.

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The flat columns with Corinthian capital tops, sprig of acanthus foliage, and pediment with facing scrolls seen on this desk and bookcase are motifs taken from ancient Rome. These desks were the busy work stations for Boston’s 18th-century merchants. The classical elements would have satisfied an appreciation for culture in the midst of the more practical business world.

The desk is attributed to John Welch, Boston’s most important furniture carver of the period. It shares the use of classical motifs with the portraits of the Burrs that flank it. The portraits’ painter, John Singleton Copley, commissioned Welch to carve a number of frames. Given this fact, it is interesting to note that the thin gilded trim around the desk’s mirrored panels matches the trim along the Burr portrait frames, which are original to the paintings.

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Cautious and alert, the fowler prepares to cage a bird using a small lamp and a stick (originally a racquet) to flush them from their nests. Among one of the best examples of the approximately ten variations of the subject known today, this bronze cast has a meticulously crafted surface, and shows the artist’s great attention to details and sensitive modeling. This version was probably cast by skilled bronzeworker Antonio Susini. Susini assisted Giambologna, a renowned Flemish artist born in Douai, Flanders, in the 16th century (now Douai, France) who spent most of his career in Italy.

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This textile once covered a cushion for a dais or a raised platform in the residential quarters of the Qianlong emperor or members of his immediate family. The silk ground is tapestry woven in yellow, red, pink, white, greens, and blues. The design comprises a central medallion surrounded by a rectangular panel, which is outlined with rows of couched gold thread and separates the central field from the broad border.

The principal motifs are the Eight Auspicious Emblems, namely the umbrella, double fish, vase, flower, conch shell, endless knot, canopy, and Dharma wheel. These were initially introduced to China from India with Buddhism and became traditional symbols in the decorative arts. Each emblem has decorative ribbons fluttering to either side and is accompanied by a multitude of lotuses, peonies, and bats.

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This white porcelain plate is decorated with a cobalt blue border enhanced with gilding. The outer design depicts putti (small cherubs) in clouds, interspersed with baskets of flowers and laurel wreaths. In the center are interlocking floral and foliate initials.

This plate comes from a service presented by Louis XV in January 1774 to Maria Carolina Louisa (known as Charlotte-Louise or Marie-Caroline-Louise), queen of Naples and the Two Sicilies, upon the birth of her second daughter, Louise, in 1773.

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Maurice Prendergast’s painting uses commingled greens, purples, grays and blues to depict the landscape surrounding people dressed in bright colors. Prendergast painted this popular beach north of Boston soon after his return from Europe. He was among the first Americans to champion the work of Paul Cézanne, a French Post-Impressionist. In this drawing, Prendergast reduced figures to nearly flat shapes, eliminated facial expressions, and flattened space with a patterned and tiered composition.

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Charles Wheeler is shown in his library filled with law books. Born in Hancock, New Hampshire, Wheeler graduated from Dartmouth College and moved west to Troy, Missouri, to practice law. He was active in the Whig Party, and was elected to the 1845 Missouri state constitutional convention. Both Wheeler’s professional and personal identities are conveyed in this portrait. Likely the Connecticut River and White Mountains of New Hampshire are depicted outside his window, and the envelope on his desk bears the date, August 11, 1835, the day Wheeler was married.

Wheeler is just the kind of self-made, rising, middle-class businessman who sought out local or traveling artists for a portrait. This task was likely easier for Wheeler than most, as his portrait and the companion one of his wife, were painted by his sister-in-law, Lucinda Redmon Orear.

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This halberd was made for a bodyguard of Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611-1684). It was probably made around the occasion of his appointment as Governor of Bohemia on January 17, 1622. Halberds like this one became purely ceremonial arms carried by bodyguards. Their makers exploited the broad surfaces of the blade, creating fanciful, graphic shapes, and covered them with beautiful decoration and the personal mottos and coats of arms of their owners. The long staffs were often embellished with vibrant fabrics and tassels. This meant that they could be used not only to keep threats at a distance, but also to create an imposing presence when carried upright by a large group of bodyguards.

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Prayer carpets are characterized by a central space featuring a mihrab, or arched niche, at one end. This carpet is distinctive for its pairs of slender columns with stepped bases and stylized capitals that support the arch. These so-called coupled columns were not a known feature of Ottoman buildings when this design was first developed in the 16th century. Recent scholarship suggests this motif is characteristic of Nasrid architecture from Muslim Spain. It was likely brought to the Ottoman Empire via Jewish weavers who fled persecution during the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century.

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As a young man, Camille Pissarro advised that the best way to advance French art would be to burn down the Louvre Museum, thus eradicating the influence of the art of the past. By the end of his career, his views had mellowed and he produced a series of several views of the Louvre in different light and weather conditions, as seen here. This painting captures the soft light of early morning and is animated by color accents of a tugboat and barges on the River Seine.

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This bamboo basket is shaped like a natural double gourd. An opening in the larger section allows for the placement of a cylindrical insert to hold water and flowers. Several sections of gnarled wisteria root wood, secured to the basket with bamboo ties, form a stand while branching up and around the rear of the double gourd. Three main types of plaiting methods were used to produce this hand-split bamboo object: irregular plaiting (midare ami) in the larger section containing the opening; mat plaiting (gozame ami) in the constricted neck of the double gourd form; and pine-needle plaiting (matsuba ami) in the smaller section.

Bamboo baskets of this kind were used to display seasonal floral arrangements, often in connection with Japanese tea ceremonies. They would have been placed within an alcove space beneath a painting or calligraphy scroll that was appropriate for the season.

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A stand of trees and open field are dramatically silhouetted against a vibrant sunset of orange, yellow, and purple. Most likely painted along the front range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, this scene communicated poetic and symbolic meaning to audiences at the time rather than landscape details.

Painted at the close of the Civil War, such a vivid representation of the end of day provided visual affirmation of the profound trauma Americans had endured. Simultaneously, the grandeur of the scene spoke to American democratic fervor that would carry the country through its distress.

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The stately tazza, or footed bowl, is one of the rarer shapes found in Iznik ware. These ceramics were produced at Iznik in modern Turkey during the 16th century. They are notable for the brilliance of their white fritware bodies, composed mostly of quartz, and for the precision of the underglaze pigments. Iznik fritware was produced for the Ottoman court, so the designs were often determined in the court workshops in Istanbul.

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In the center of this photograph, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads thousands of marchers, stretching as far as the eye can see. With his arms raised and hands clasped with prominent civil rights leaders, King energetically leads the participants forward. On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Gathering near the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Over 3,000 members of the press, including Moneta Sleet Jr., were in attendance to cover it.

Sleet is one of the most recognized photojournalists of the civil rights movement. He developed a close relationship with Dr. King and photographed him numerous times throughout the 1950s and ’60s, including King’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and his leadership of the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.

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This sofa with scrolled arms and legs in the form of sea creatures, precisely carved from head to tail fin, represents an extraordinary vision skillfully executed. The stylized fish, commonly called a dolphin, became a popular motif in the decorative arts during an era of classical revival fueled by the discovery of artifacts from ancient Egypt, Greece, and especially Rome. The sofa’s double-scrolled crest rail, or top rail, echoes the curvilinear shape of the dolphins. A masterpiece of American furniture, this sofa achieves a supremely dynamic and ornamental effect through a combination of exuberant design and superb carving.

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Charming scenes of children at the beach were an especially popular theme for Jozef Israëls. In his native Netherlands, the sea is never far away, and the subject recurs often in his work. Variants include fishing and seafaring to more everyday subjects such as this view of a boy and girl playing on the beach. Israëls was a founding member of the Hague School, a group of 19th-century Dutch painters who looked back at their illustrious 17th-century predecessors such as Rembrandt for inspiration. At the same time, they absorbed new trends toward naturalism and direct observation evolving in France.

Even though Israëls himself pronounced copies of paintings to be “potboilers,” at least three painted versions of this composition survive, in addition to the Museum’s pastel. The earliest version, from 1863, was exhibited at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, France.

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With its exquisitely detailed feather arrangement around the head, prominent eyes, and menacing claw-like beak, this beautifully cast gold eagle head was worn by a warrior preparing for battle or ritual ceremony. The labret was inserted through a hole in the lower lip, with the radiance of the metal reflecting the light of the sun.

Metalworking in central Mexico was probably introduced to the Mixtecs as a fully developed art from South America sometime in the 13th century. The neighboring Aztecs purchased such objects from their neighbors to use in sacred and political rituals; they called such objects teocuitlacuauhtentetl.

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The distinct colors—deep green and mustard yellow—of this mold-made ceramic cup are obtained from a lead glaze developed in the 1st century BC in the eastern Mediterranean. More fluid and less prone to cracking, this glaze was a distinct improvement over other contemporary glazing technologies. It has been suggested that these colors were specifically selected to emulate the patina of weathered bronze and gilded silver. This vessel shape is common in ceramic, glass, and metal.

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Dramatically curved and boldly colored, these chairs heralded a new style of classicism in American furniture that turned to ancient Greek forms for its models. The chairs are from a large suite of tables and seating furniture by the English architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe for the drawing room of the house he designed for the Philadelphia merchant William Waln. The simplified palette of red, black, and gold provides clarity and contrast for the classical vocabulary of gilded palmettes, lyres, and foliage that adorn the chairs’ surfaces. Each crest rail in the set of chairs features a different composition of mythological creatures. Latrobe’s innovative design presented a challenge for the furniture maker he commissioned to make the set. Writing to his client, Latrobe complained that the first model “was the ugliest thing I ever saw. To make a chair requires as much taste as to design one.”

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The squirrels-among-grapevines motif, which has appeared on paintings and decorative objects in China, Korea, and Japan since the 16th century, symbolizes fertility, as squirrels have large litters and grapes produce many seeds. The squirrels, grapes, and some leaves are inlaid with turban shell. The remaining leaves and tendrils are painted with gold foil in a technique known as hakue; delicate lines may be scratched through the foil or painted over with lacquer. This stationery box was made in the Ryukyu Islands, an archipelago between Japan and Taiwan that was an independent kingdom from the 14th century until 1879, when it was annexed by Japan. The cover of the box has scalloped edges outlined in red lacquer and fits snugly over the box, which is raised above a projected perimeter footing with decorative reveals.

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Tubular forms float in a swamp-like green expanse, while tiny silver eggs at bottom right allude to a future rainstorm. Working under the influence of French Surrealism, Roberto Matta adopted its practice of automatic drawing, where the hand is freed from rational control. Matta worked in New York City during the 1940s and became a mentor for a generation of young American painters who shared his interest in abstraction and unconscious creative impulses.

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Alfred Stieglitz was intrigued by the ever-changing skyline of Manhattan, which he photographed from the midtown high-rise that he shared with his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe. In this image, he contrasted both new and old, light and dark. The newly constructed Rockefeller Center dwarfs the spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just visible on the right. At the same time, the bright, crystalline forms of its modern towers dramatically ascend from the vast pool of darkness below.

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Before a magnificent landscape of hills and cliffs, three opulently dressed Magi present the Christ Child with exotic gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The flamboyant kings contrast with the two simple shepherds who strain to observe the scene as they peer on either side of the half column behind the Holy Family. The three different ages and nationalities of the Magi, as well as the distinction between the poor shepherds and wealthy kings, symbolize the universality of Christ’s mission. Following Northern traditions of architectural symbolism, the dilapidated building at right denotes the collapse of a previous religious order. The stone steps on which Mary and her baby sit suggest the foundation of a new one.

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A rare example of Byzantine church silver, this reliquary, or container for holy objects, has a fluted body and a large rosette decorating the lid. Lathe-cut grooves define the flutes, or parallel channels, on the body and concentric grooves frame the rosette on top, creating a wide rim band. Within the band is a punched Greek inscription that could be translated, “Offering of TIBERINE, the deaconess, to St. Stephen.” The bottom has a graffito, or an inscription scratched into the silver, that repeats the first word of the lid inscription: “Offering: two pounds, two ounces, four grams.”

That the box actually weighs less than indicated by the inscription poses some interesting questions about whether that was the weight for a reliquary set, of which this is just one piece, or whether that was the weight before some of the box’s contents were removed. A more intriguing translation of the inscription might be “Offering of the Tiberine Dioconate to St. Stephen,” suggesting that the monastery of St. Symeon Stylites the Younger in Syria offered relics of that saint to a church or monastery bearing St. Stephen’s name.

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Joseph Vernet’s harbor view presents four distinct types of light: campfire, moonglow, lighthouse beam, and the reflection of light on the water’s surface. European art enthusiasts of the late 17th to late 18th centuries loved a mixture of the scientific and the poetic, and Vernet’s canvas provides just that. A specialist in marine pictures and imaginary landscapes, Vernet visited Naples three times during his life and drew upon his experiences there to create engaging views of the southern Italian city. The painting evokes Naples with its harbor view, lighthouse tower, and shoreline fishermen.

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This is a rare porcelain headrest in the form of a theater with a surrounding balustrade. The object is modeled in high relief on all four sides with figural and architectural details (see detail). The shaped top is slanted toward one of the long sides and decorated with a design of interlocking coins within an undulating border. During the Yuan dynasty, drama attained such a high point in the history of Chinese literature and performing arts that theatrical structures inspired the production of ceramic headrests.

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In this photo, seaweed along the Maine coast creates a dense web of overlapping shapes and forms. There is an evocative physical presence in its glistening blades amidst a dark mysterious background. The photographer used a large-format camera to achieve tremendous clarity and detail. The tight composition makes the subject ambiguous and encourage new possible interpretations. In Strand’s view, the seaweed patterns actively move the viewer’s eye in and around the image, conveying nature’s energy and the fluidity of its form.

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Frits Thaulow was the brother-in-law of Paul Gauguin, a friend of Claude Monet, and the central figure in the emergence of a Norwegian school of Impressionist landscape painting in the 1880s. This image is one of a series of winter views which Thaulow produced of factories on the Akerselven River in Oslo. The reds of the buildings offset the whites of the snow and inky blackness of the water; a tiny figure crosses a bridge in the distance.

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Édouard Vuillard was a prominent member of the 1890s avant-garde group The Nabis, (a Hebrew word meaning “prophet”), who acquired notoriety for their highly decorative, semi-abstract compositions. Vuillard favored representations of bourgeois interiors, often of his family home. Here he represents his mother seated in her armchair in the left foreground with her legs stretched toward the heat emanating from the fire.

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Luminous blue and white crystals form dense clusters at the neck and shoulder and trail evocatively around the body of this vase. French ceramic artist Taxile Doat was a specialist in glaze effects on porcelain and stoneware, especially crystalline glazes. He formulated the glazes to produce crystals varying in size, color, pattern, and surface texture. Doat made this spectacular vase in University City, Missouri, where he led an international ceramic faculty in an innovative art academy and porcelain works.

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On this vibrant lustre-glazed dish, eight boats circle the rim with bright white, wind-filled sails, creating a dynamic rhythm. In the center is a whirlpool of undulating forms and linear patterning in shades of saturated blues and greens. Artist and designer Galileo Chini reimagined the historical ceramic traditions of his native Italy and the Mediterranean region with modern flair on this charger, or platter. Chini’s workshop in Florence, Arte della Ceramica, exhibited their ceramics to great acclaim at international expositions, winning a gold medal at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair and a silver medal in St. Louis in 1904.

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The Mississippi River fills the foreground, with wetlands stretching into the distance. Frederick Oakes Sylvester painted this view looking towards Missouri from the bluffs at Elsah, Illinois. A leader in the early 20th-century St. Louis art scene, Sylvester taught at Principia and Central High School.

Best known for his paintings of the Mississippi River, Sylvester also wrote poems praising the beauty of the water and its golden light. In 1911, he published a collection titled The Great River: Poems and Pictures, a copy of which is held in the Richardson Memorial Library Special Collections.

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The refined symmetry and tight weave of this container identify it as a Chinese-style flower basket. Starting with chrysanthemum base plaiting (kikuzoko-ami), the sensual curving sides of the body and neck are mainly made of mat plaiting (gozame-ami or nuki-ami) except for a banded section of openwork toward the top.

The tall and elegant handle is made from a single wide strip of bamboo with decorative rattan knotting at the top. It is attached to the body at its two widest points with elaborate knots as well as to the neck of the vessel by way of two circular rings. The handle is further secured to the body by two bent bamboo stalks, each with three delicate knot fastenings.

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In 1979, the artist Alan Rohan Crite explained his preference for the kind of everyday neighborhood scene like Douglass Square. He said, “I was living here [Boston] in the South End with a lot of black people around me. I was painting them as I saw them as human beings, just ordinary human beings, having ordinary lives. In the twenties and thirties the image of black people was distorted, to put it mildly. We had a ‘Jazz Negro’ entertainer or a traumatic figure out of the ghetto or a social problem. But the ordinary human being who goes to the store, comes home, washes dishes, all the homely things—he just wasn’t registering. I felt it important for me to present that life of black people as part of the Christian dignity of man.”

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The bare tree silhouetted against the lighter background enhances the wintry chill of this picture. This artist was the first to specialize in the winter panorama, scenes he depicted with satisfying and interesting detail. Hendrick Avercamp was an astute observer of people, carefully recording gestures and activities to lend a sense of everyday life to his subjects. He sometimes repeated the same figures in subsequent paintings without losing the individuality of the people engaged in their daily tasks.

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Album, or friendship, quilts are among the most beautiful and sophisticated American quilts produced in the 19th century. This style of quilt was made in Baltimore between 1846 and 1852. They were stitched by groups of women to commemorate special events, to honor a prominent community member, or to remember someone relocating in this period of westward expansion.

This quilt was made as a tribute to Elizabeth Morrison by a group of Methodist church women. It is inscribed, “Presented to E Morrison By Ladies of Baltimore, MD.,” and has eight signatures. Two other inscriptions begin with the words “Friendship’s Offering” and “Friendship’s Gift.” An additional message offers an insight into political events of the time: “From one of the Rough & Ready To the Worthy President Mary Ann Hudgins, 1848.” U.S. Army General Zachary Taylor, who became the nation’s 12th president in 1849, was known to his troops as “Old Rough and Ready.”

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This canoe model, created by a Haida, Tlingit, or Tsimshian artist, exhibits the same technique, form, design, and painting used for large-scale canoes. Carved from a single log, the model has the central characteristic U-shape of larger canoes and the narrowing ends typical of head canoes, known as long tails by the Tlingit. The abstract, ovoid shapes represent different kinds of animals in green, red, and black pigment and follow the natural contours of the canoe. Canoe models were often made for some of the earliest non-Native travelers to the Northwest, and were carved by the same master artists who crafted large-scale canoes and lived in Haida and Tlingit communities.

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In this composition, intersecting lines create an irregular grid of triangles, curves, and unique shapes. These colorful components form the bodies and clothing of three female figures. Artist Carlos Mérida advocated a type of abstraction based on the bold, geometric patterns and vibrant colors of Maya textiles and other Indigenous Latin American arts. Mérida, a Guatemalan artist who lived much of his life in Mexico, sought to establish a uniquely American form of abstract art in conversation with contemporary European artistic developments.

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Herbert Gentry created dream-like fantasy worlds, populated by totems and mask-like faces emerging from a tangle of color contours. A devoted abstractionist, Gentry studied with the French cubist painter Georges Braque and American abstract expressionist artist Beauford Delaney. Gentry retained the figure as a means “to see form.” Above all, Gentry insisted his images be allowed to unfold freely without plan, relying on “a certain spontaneity” where his “subconscious plays a great role.”

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These screens present a Chinese-style landscape, filled with characteristic mountain peaks, undulating hills, agricultural fields, and rustic dwellings, drawn with soft colors and ink. The scenes offer a tour through the four seasons of a year with pale pink cherry blossoms of spring and verdant landscapes of summer featured on the right-hand screen. The reds and browns of autumn and the snow-covered hills of winter grace the left-hand screen. The painting style is inspired by the “plain and bland” manner (in Chinese, pingdan; in Japanese, heitan), which relies on a few, spare strokes.

The artist Matsubayashi Keigetsu has written nine Chinese poems and two inscriptions across the upper portion of both screens. In the last inscription, he mentioned “Old Man Nakata,” namely Nakata Kitarō, who published printed volumes of Keigetsu’s works. It would have been appropriate for Keigetsu to thank Nakata for his support by presenting him with this pair of folding screens.

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Seated in a magnificent throne that conveys both importance and spatial depth, Mary holds the Christ child as he playfully pulls at her mantle. The altarpiece demonstrates the late 14th- and early 15th-century interest in rendering the Madonna and child in a more naturalistic manner by displaying tender emotions and figural volume. The placement of the throne and the position of the attending angels invite the viewer into the space and suggest a regal yet earthly setting.

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This seemingly simple work actually contains many layers of paint and fabric (see detail). Scratches through the black on the left reveal a ground of bright orange, also evident under white areas in the lower half. The white rectangle in the center is built up from layers of cut canvas, and its side shimmers with iridescent pinks and gold. Frank Wimberley’s approach to assembling these elements was improvisational and inspired by jazz. In turn, it was appreciated by musicians such as Miles Davis, who collected his work.

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Between 1909 and 1911, Wassily Kandinsky, a central figure in twentieth century art, lived and worked in Murnau, a village in the Bavarian Alps. During this period, the artist turned away from the direct depiction of nature in favor of a more abstract approach and came to believe in the suggestive power of color. In this painting of a winter landscape, however, Kandinsky restricted his palette to subtle whites, browns, pinks, and blues. The choice of subject matter and the way the paint is applied create a tension between stasis and movement in the canvas. In the foliage of the tree in the right foreground, Kandinsky applied oil paint in layers, giving the appearance of ephemeral watercolor washes. White paint mixes with color to create muted tones such as the dirty brown smoke emitted from the small locomotive chugging across the frozen valley.

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Amid grape clusters and vines, Pan reclines on a rocky base. His left hand clutches the goatskin once filled with libations. Such details, together with the small salamander carved amid the rocks, evoke a rustic scene befitting Pan, the half-goat, half-human god of the woods, fields, and flocks. Known for lustful pursuits, the grimacing Pan holds a reed pipe, or syrinx, an allusion to the maiden Syrinx, who turned into a patch of reeds to escape Pan’s advances.

Looking at the sculpture from the back, remnants of an ancient carving are still visible. Portions of the folds and fringed edge of a draped garment from a 2nd- or 3rd-century Roman relief can be detected behind the head and upper torso.

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These finials (rimmonim) capped the rods of a rolled Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible and the most sacred object in the Jewish faith. Miniature breastplates, crowns, and precious textiles also adorned the scrolls when they were not in use. The finials’ bells drew attention to the Torah, draped in a trimmed mantle, or cloth cover, as the procession moved through the synagogue before and after readings.

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Erich Heckel’s aerial view of bathers captures life at a lakeside retreat in northern Germany. Heckel and other members of the artist group Die Brücke (The Bridge) visited such retreats to paint nude models outdoors and to escape the pressures of early 20th-century urban life. They were not alone. Many Germans practiced nude bathing as part of Lebensreform (Life Reform), a back-to-nature movement that advocated nudity outdoors to improve mental and physical health.

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The sumptuous gold-lacquer chrysanthemums decorating this serving table celebrate the beauty and abundance of autumn. Revealed among delicate, lacy leaves, a profusion of blossoms in low relief is echoed by spiraling clouds of swirling gold and silver flake, all against a gold-dusted, “pear-skin” ground. The raised, neatly indented corners on the top complement the four finely proportioned legs, the taut, curving shapes of which give the table an elegant and dynamic form. In style and technique, this table closely conforms to work from sixteenth-century Kyoto, especially the costly commissions for the nobility and the ruling military class. Beautifully set with gourmet morsels before an honored guest, the table would exemplify the lavishly ornate high aristocratic style of later Japan under the rule of the shoguns.

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Sand dunes rise in the background of this landscape sketch, protecting the small village from the waves that buffet its shores on the North Sea. John Greenwood visited Den Hoorn, or The Horn, located about two hours north of Amsterdam, while touring scenic areas in the Netherlands.

Was Greenwood an American artist? In 1753 at age 25, he left his burgeoning career as a portraitist in Boston, never to return to North America. Over the next four decades, he worked as a painter, engraver, art dealer, and auctioneer, first in Suriname in South America and then in the cosmopolitan centers of Amsterdam and London. Operating at the intersection of the British and Dutch empires, Greenwood’s personal history demonstrates the interconnected networks around the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th century.

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These precious squares of lace and woven silk reflect the profound influence of pattern books on all forms of textiles in the early 17th century. Designs seen in Bartolomeo Danieli’s Vari disegni di merlette, published in 1639, served as models for lace makers developing the free-flowing patterns visible in this Chalice Veil. Composed of scrolling, narrow, tape-like strips of linen linked with tiny stitches, the veil shows how lace expanded beyond cuff and sleeve embellishment to become a fabric.

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Faith’s draped classical dress, decorative headband with cross, and solemn expression communicate this sculpture’s neoclassical character and its spiritual significance. This work is one of a trio of allegorical busts depicting the theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity. The artist, Hiram Powers placed the virtues in a different order; he believed that, “Hope was the bud, Faith, the flower, Charity, the fruit.” Powers was one of a number of American sculptors who made his home in Florence, Italy.

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This work’s floating spirals, arcs, and leaf-like shapes are both printed and painted. Bill Hutson is inclined to revise his own compositions and paint on unconventional supports. After returning from Brandywine Workshop with a stack of impressions of the offset lithograph Ebco Na and responding to cues from the underlying image, he applied acrylic to create several variations, of which this is one. A staining method is coupled with hand-brushed marks—thick, linear accretions of finely blended color—evoking depth.

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Steatite vessels such as this one were used for cooking in the 9th–10th centuries in the northeastern Iranian city of Nishapur. Many small steatite objects have been excavated, but this is the largest complete vessel known. The stone is carved to form an Arabic inscription in relief, in an angular style known as Kufic. The tops of the taller letters end in leaves and flowers, a popular calligraphic device in the 10th century.

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Reminiscent of a 17th-century Dutch landscape painting with a distant, low horizon and clusters of figures, this photograph is a meticulous simulation. Beate Gütschow digitally combined dozens of images of mundane, unrelated places, such as public parks and construction sites. This blending references earlier traditions of European landscape pictures, in which the countryside vistas depicted were also artificial fabrications. The printing information visible at the right deliberately erodes trust in the photographic illusion by hinting at the process of its construction.

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The low horizon line of this picture emphasizes the most prominent characteristic of the Dutch countryside—its flatness. Several Dutch artists working in the middle years of the 17th century focused on this aspect of their native land. Using a limited number of colors, Jan van Goyen captures the tonal variations in the clouds and the reflected light on the cool ice below.

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Flowers three ways—loosely bundled, wound into garlands, and repeated in commas of pattern—make this a dizzyingly complex textile. Made in Spitalfields, the silk-weaving capital of England, this luxurious dress fabric, festooned with tulips, roses, and bellflowers, represents the pinnacle of 18th-century botanical naturalism. The brocading, or woven and raised embellishment, mirrored the depth and variation achieved in embroidery of the same moment.

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This object was made in the Ryūkyū Islands, once an independent kingdom but now part of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The cover is inlaid on its top surface with a pair of three-clawed, spiny dragons cavorting through swirling clouds. The dragons each extend one front claw, the talons stuck in large flaming pearls.

On one long side of the box, a bearded gentleman in a long robe and cap lounges against a tree in a garden as he watches his attendant setting a bird free from its cage. On the opposite side, the scene features a family in a garden, the father wearing a high hat as he holds a young boy’s hand while the mother holds up her infant. On either short side, shaped medallions enclosing floral sprays are set against a cross motif, all using very small mother-of-pearl segments.

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Mary Magdalene, a Christian saint popular in the 17th century, is being carried into the sky by angels. According to a 13th-century biographical account, she retired to a cave in southern France near the end of her life. Her daily prayer ritual, depicted here, included an ascent into heaven facilitated by a group of angels who carried her aloft. In the 17th century, Christians believed she was a converted prostitute (now known to be untrue). Since she was able to renounce her sin and follow Christianity, she was held as a model for those who had embraced the tenets of Protestantism and could also renounce their past and return to the Catholic Church. Francesco Albani’s mastery of the human form resulted from his training in Bologna, Italy, where artists utilized drawings made by sketching live models.

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In this painting, the curve of the road directs attention deep into the landscape, past a screen of wiry trees to the Hudson River beyond. A cloud-filled sky and dirty patches of snow communicate the dreariness of an overcast winter day, but the scene is invigorated by bright spots of blue and red.

Today’s Object of the Day is featured in the Winter Celebration 2023 Scavenger Hunt. Join the Museum on December 9-10, 2023 for a weekend of performances and activities.

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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was nearly seventy years old and at the height of his considerable fame as a landscape artist, when he painted Girl with Mandolin. Corot employed models and directed them to strike contemplative attitudes, often holding an instrument or a book. Posing in the theatrical space of the studio, this young woman wears an Italian peasant costume and idly plucks the mandolin strings.

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The slightly wrinkled face and sunken cheeks suggest this figure represents Itzamnaaj, one of the oldest and most important deities of the Classic and Postclassic Maya. He wears a feline headdress and a costume of heavy braided rope. The bottom of his tunic and pants are fringed with small bells typical of the copper ornaments worn during this period. Such censers became much more common in the Maya region during the Postclassic period. Their intimate size and scale suggests to some scholars a more individualized approach to religion at this time.

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A woman wears a slim-fitting gown with the suggestion of embroidery on the bodice. Her dress, coupled with her plumed headwear, identifies her as a woman of high fashion and wealth. Giovanni Boldini’s work was synonymous with society portraiture both in Paris, where he spent most of his career, and internationally. The decisive lines that shape the figure’s body, clothes, and setting lend an abstracted energy to this depiction. Boldini painted using a similar approach, creating a style that appealed to elegant patrons.

The woman’s body is subtly evident beneath her clothes in this drawing. Such portraits circulated as evaluations of a woman’s position in society, based on her appearance and clothing, as determined by the expectations of the male gaze.

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Though quite small, this portrait of a young, African American girl conveys a sweetness without sentimentality. The textured treatment of the surface creates a sophisticated play of light and shadow. This treatment enlivens the girl’s expression, creating a complex psychology that shifts, as children do, from tender innocence to a cautious reserve.

The artist, Augusta Savage, was a leader in the Harlem Renaissance, an early 20th-century African American cultural movement responsible for some of the nation’s most important creative and intellectual productions. Because Savage focused most of her artistic energy on teaching, her own work is typically small and only rarely cast in bronze due to her limited budget and time.

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Takeuchi Seihō was a descendant of the Maruyama-Shijō school tradition of bird-and-flower painting. He became a highly influential and key figure of the Kyoto school of painting of the late 19th to early 20th centuries. He later became a founder of the modern Kyoto school of Nihonga. As a teacher, Seihō was without rival. His superb technique and aesthetic sophistication made him the leading artist of Kyoto for decades.

While traveling in Europe in 1900, Seihō developed a keen appreciation for the works of French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and British artist Joseph William Mallord Turner. He utilized some of their Western aesthetic for his highly original early work upon his return in autumn of 1901. However, by the 1910s, Seihō fully returned to his Japanese roots, incorporating the focus on sketching from life (shasei) into his landscapes and celebrated animals studies.

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The beauty of this pitcher and its matching basin is in the skillful balance of curvilinear shapes and rich ornament. The taut scrolls that form the mouth and handle of the pitcher contrast with the flowing lines of the basin’s rim. Bands of parallel grooves, called flutes, encircle the basin and the pitcher, where they also enclose curvaceous panels filled with engraved flowers. Cast foliage envelops the pierced handle, and shells and shell-like motifs ornament the lid. The ornament of shells, reeds, and cattails all evoke a water motif appropriate to the pitcher and basin’s role on the dressing table, where they were used for hand washing.

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In this work, horizontal bands of color slice across a round sheet. Ed Clark is considered among the first American artists to experiment with shaped supports, a radical departure from traditional rectangular formats, which redefined painting. He first exhibited his transformative shaped work, which had elements extending beyond the frame, in 1957 at the Brata Gallery. This was an influential venue in New York at the heart of the city’s mid-century avant-garde art scene. In 1968, he began to explore circular and oval profiles, of which this work is an early example.

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A galloping horse and rider evoke the iconic Plains horse cultures from the pre-reservation era. Across the 19th century many Plains men created autobiographical, narrative drawings and paintings to memorialize their brave feats. As a young man in the 1860s, Oki’ cize-ta’wa garnered recognition for his achievement raiding horses from enemy camps. This figure may represent the artist himself. The design for painting his face included an upturned crescent on his chin, here visible as a dark, tapering line.

Made for trade during the reservation era, this drum demonstrates how Plains men adapted ancestral pictorial conventions to earn income under foreign economic and social contexts.

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This extravagant sideboard features carved ornament that represents wine and agriculture, subjects appropriate to furniture intended for the dining room. Grape vines encircle a pudgy baby or putto at the top. Pendant grapes and the goat in the central panel may be emblems of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. More grapes and a cask ornament one of the doors below. The inclusion of straw hats, sheaves of wheat, a hay fork, and a gourd bottle on the other door suggests agriculture, the harvest, or simply country life—all motifs for the enjoyment of the city dwellers who were Alexander Roux’s principal customers.

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This work shows a lit, upright candle alongside a fallen and extinguished one. To the left and right are a sculpture of a female head and an arrangement of orchids. Max Beckmann used candles as traditional symbols of the fleeting nature of life; here, he places them within a modern composition of interlocking shapes, reflecting the influence of Picasso. The work is inscribed “St L” at top left, indicating that it was painted in Saint Louis, shortly after Beckmann’s arrival in our city in 1947.

Today’s object is featured in the Max Beckmann Collection Guide, a self-guided audio experience.

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Glass-making in the Islamic world reflects a vibrant tradition dating from ancient times. The Romans first discovered how to blow glass on a rod, while the Iranians in late antiquity specialized in molded glass with wheel-cut decoration.

This tiny bowl from Iraq was made using a revived Roman technique called millefiori, or “thousand flowers,” which entailed slicing through rods of differently colored glass and then heating them slowly in a mold until they fused together.

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Surrounded by luxurious objects that enhance her beauty and define her good taste, this unknown woman threads the satin ribbons from a string of crystal beads into her hair. The lavish marble-top table with its putto base, the imported Chinese porcelain vase, and the opulent fabrics were frequent motifs in Largillière’s art and were particularly popular among the moneyed society that employed him. In a court where nobility vied to be present when the king dressed in the morning, intimate images like this one, set in the bedroom or boudoir, were appropriate for the display of wealth and power.

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Gilt metal ball-and-loop toggle buttons fasten the top flap of this robe. The sleeves end in deeply flared cuffs trimmed with otter fur. The red twill-weave silk ground is finely embroidered with multicolored floss silk in satin stitch. Eight medallions surround a Manchurian red-crowned crane encircled by butterflies and floral sprays. The neck band, sleeve bands, and cuffs feature smaller medallions containing similar motifs against a black silk ground. The very wide hem has parallel bands of “standing water” (lishui) with auspicious emblems and a slit at either side. The bright purple in the hem bands derives from a synthetic dye known as “Perkin’s purple” that was first imported from England to China in 1871.

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Tiny fishing boats and massive steamships dock at the bustling Old Port of Marseille in France. Oskar Kokoschka stopped here in March of 1925 on a tour of the Mediterranean region. At each city, he painted a famous landmark from a high vantage point, capturing unfamiliar sights and sounds with dynamic brushstrokes. This happy scene masks a darker reality. In the 1920s, Kokoschka traveled compulsively to escape his traumatic experience as a soldier in World War I (1914–1918).

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This tomb plaque commemorates Ulrich and Elisabeth von Erbach, the children of Count Eberhardt Schenck von Erbach and his wife Elisabeth. The plaque marked the tomb of both brother and sister, and is inscribed with their names and dates of death on a scroll that unfurls around them to form the border of the relief. Ulrich appears to be a youth, not old enough to be a knight, but perhaps in training, and thus his feet rest on a lion, an allusion to the heraldic symbol above his head and an artistic device representing strength and courage, virtues expected in a warrior. The young siblings are depicted in the height of civilian finery and 14th-century fashion.

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The repetitive pattern that covers this pitcher seems endless. Row upon row of tightly arrayed angular motifs create a deceptively simple decorative scheme, but all of this work was done by hand and was very time consuming. Originally intended to be one color, something went worn when this pitcher was misfired in the kiln resulting in variegated coloring. Although its form makes it easy to imagine using this at a table, much of the pottery from this period comes to us from funerary contexts. Entire sets of ceramics were often placed in the grave.

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From an elevated viewpoint we see the city of Antwerp at the distant right, a covered wagon in the middle distance, and a marshy stream in the right foreground. The scene is filled with fauna and flora, all finished in the painstaking detail for which Jan Brueghel the Elder is known. The road at left draws us into the painting, while bands of varying greens open up the distant landscape to suggest expansive space. Travelers journey on the left while hunters stalk herons in the marshy grasses at the right. The standing dog on the lower left appears to have a second head, indicating that the artist changed its position.

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This tile represents Caroline Risque’s response to a design exercise for “a medieval village” proposed by Frederick Rhead for the correspondence students at University City Pottery. The red earthenware clay is modeled in low relief and incised contours strengthen the design. Risque simplified her figures and other forms to suit the low-relief surface. She used Rhead’s palette of matte buff, blue, green, and brown glazes.

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The visually complex shape and interlocking dragon decor of this work are based on ancient prototypes. The surface of this vessel appears to be an aged, corroded patina (finish) but is actually skillfully applied paint. This extraordinary tripod vessel is among the very rare Ming works that closely follow ancient ritual bronze design. Early collectors prized this bronze based on the elaborately carved cover and stand in matching fine woods that were created for it in the 18th century.

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Two of the most prominent contemporary art dealers, the brothers Gaston and Josse Bernheim-Jeune, pose in the viewing studio of their galleries. Gaston perches on a chair in the foreground while Josse reads at his desk further back; high-powered picture lights are visible to the right. Vuillard was a friend of the two dealers and regularly exhibited at their gallery, enjoying considerable commercial success in the early years of the twentieth century.

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The naturalism of Joan of Arc, a 15th-century French heroine and Catholic saint, is striking. She turns her head momentarily, her attention seemingly held rapt by something—perhaps a voice—to her left.

Robert Porter Bringhurst taught in St. Louis at the School of Fine Arts (now Washington University) from 1885–1893. Several of his works can still be seen in the city, including a large bronze figure of President Ulysses S. Grant that stands near City Hall on the corner of Market and Tucker Streets.

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Auguste Rodin often produced fragmentary studies of individual anatomical features, and stated, “I have always had an intense passion for the expression of the human hand.” In this work, the boldly modeled swellings and depressions of the hand suggest a sense of agitated anguish. This sculpture is probably related to Rodin’s grand project, The Burghers of Calais, in which a group of elderly men face the prospect of impending death.

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John Singer Sargent painted seven-year-old Charlotte Cram in his London studio. She sits in an oversized chair with the unaffected charm of youth. The sparkle in her brown eyes, barely restrained smile, tilt of her head, and frank gaze are endearing without excessive sentimentality. Sargent perfectly captured her twisted pose and interlaced fingers, as she presses them into the wooden arm of the chair trying her very best not to squirm.

Charlotte’s white taffeta dress and oversized yellow sash and bow reveal the artist’s confident ability. Sargent, one of the foremost portraitists in American art, knew exactly where to place his dramatic brushstrokes to translate the essence of a bow or ribbon or hand into paint. His exceptional technique and aesthetic sensibility were equally matched by his innate grasp of his subject’s genuine emotions.

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This banner, one of a pair, has an elongated vertical form with a flat top, pointed lower end, and serrated edges on three sides worked with stylized red flames. The ground material is black silk satin with embroidered decoration featuring a front-facing five-clawed dragon with red flames emanating from its pale pink scaly body. The mythical creature rises above waves, rocks, and clouds. Hovering above it is a flaming pearl, a symbol of spiritual energy, knowledge, good fortune, and authority. Since the banner was meant to be viewed from either direction when hung, the design is identical on both sides. Such examples were used primarily in ceremonies and military reviews rather than on the battleground, or as part of theatrical sets in an imperial palace.

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Hector Guimard animated his designs with abstract clusters of buds, unfurling plant forms, and writhing tendrils as seen on the legs of this tea table. Nature was the primary source of inspiration for Guimard, a French architect and designer, who embraced a new mode of expression that broke from historical styles. Rather than applying ornament as separate decorative elements, he worked like a sculptor, fusing structure and ornament, often creating bold, curving lines that convey movement and energy. In the early 20th century, architects such as Guimard worked in a variety of materials, designing not only entire buildings and architectural ornaments but their interiors and furnishings as well.

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A fisherman in rubber boots, oilskin jacket, and hat opens his mouth as though shouting to a distant comrade. A marine ray at his feet suggests the nature of his profession. Constantin Meunier may have modeled this figure after laborers he observed at the wharf at Ostend, a Belgian coastal city. Meunier became well-known late in his career for sculptures of workers at docks, mines, and forges and in agriculture and domestic occupations. Despite this fisherman’s grueling employment, his upright posture and muscular physique lend dignity, even heroism, to his labor.

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Artemis, goddess of the hunt, is identifiable here by the quiver strap across her chest. The way the dress clings to the body (often called “wet drapery”) while simultaneously billowing around the figure creates an exaggerated sense of movement that is a signature element of Hellenistic sculpture. Known for her chastity and modesty, Artemis cannot escape the dictates of the style and its body-conscious modeling.

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Four aluminum boxes lined with blue Plexiglas are spaced at equal intervals. Donald Judd used repeated forms to reduce emphasis on any one aspect of the composition. Made by fabricators using industrial processes and materials, his works do not bear the trace of his hand. Judd insisted that freestanding objects like these be placed on the floor, rather than on a gallery platform, to create a direct relationship with the surrounding space.

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Bright spots of color pop out against this dark sheet of paper. A lattice-like network of charcoal lines supports the vivid areas of pastel that enliven a scene of urban daily life in a corner of a city. Looking out over the various features that make up this setting, James McNeill Whistler captured a delicate moment that vibrates with the scenes unfolding beyond doorways and through windows. The artist himself seems to remain at a distance, unobserved by the figures who capture his attention. Whistler spent more than a year fascinated by Venice. It was in this distinctive northern Italian city that he made use of pastel for landscapes and street scenes such as this for the first time.

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This bright yellow satin robe is meticulously worked on the front and back with eight five-clawed dragons (long) pursuing flaming pearls, with a ninth dragon hidden on the front underflap. Auspicious bats fly over rolling waves and mountains. The stylized stripes of deep water at the hem are finely embroidered in shades of green, blue, and white, with intervening gold threads. The undulating waves above them are satin-stitched with two or three colors mixed in any given band, producing a spectacular effect of shading. The slightly flared deep blue satin “horse-hoof” cuffs are decorated with dragons and multicolored clouds above waves, as is the neck band. The garment’s slits on front, back, and sides indicate an imperial rank of the highest order.

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The elongated arms of 18 alternating men and women lock together to form a dance circle around four musicians holding drums and rattles. The female figures wear wrap skirts and simple banded headdresses, while the males’ attire consists of waistbands, ear ornaments, and elaborate headdresses. Detailed models such as this one provide unique insight into the costume and ritual performances of ancient West Mexico. Music and dance were central to the region’s festivals held to honor and praise ancestors, appease natural forces, and celebrate victories, marriages, and other significant events.

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The preeminent Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron costumed her friends and family and used dramatic lighting effects to create imaginative scenes. Vivien and Merlin is an evocative enactment of a passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s epic poem, Idylls of the King. Capturing the moment of betrayal in Tennyson’s poem, this image depicts the seductive Vivien casting a spell over the magician Merlin as he falls into a trance. Cameron’s husband, Charles, and her maid, Agnes Mangles posed for the two characters in this scene.

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This simple helmet, with large cheekpieces and adjustable nasal guard to defend against sword cuts and flexible neck defense reminiscent of a lobster’s tail, was the classic headpiece of European horsemen during the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48). Its name is derived from the Slavic/Turkic term shishak, the name for a similarly formed helmet introduced into eastern Europe via the Ottoman Turks. This example is of finer quality than most others, which were left unpolished or painted black to reduce maintenance.

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Strands of tiny white glass beads spiral around arching cords, fastened by meticulous stitching. Contrasting in tone and texture, large metal beads establish a bold column at center. This necklace combines the ancient technique of threading beads, as with the metal discs, and the more recent method of bead embroidery. Women made necklaces such as this for men to wear on special occasions during the first decades of life on reservations in Montana and reserves in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.

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Otto Dix depicts the family of fellow artist Conrad Felixmüller, who is shown at top facing upward with yellow-toned skin and open mouth. Below him at right is his wife, Londa, who smiles serenely while cradling their baby, Luca. Together the parents form a protective backdrop around Luca, while Conrad’s right arm reaches over to rest atop Luca’s head. A townscape is visible in the background. In this work Dix’s style combines the faceted forms of Cubism with the vibrant color of the Italian Futurists.

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This painting depicts a lotus pond with a clump of Japanese iris (Iris ensata; hanashōbu) with angular leaf blades. Kubota Beisen executed the work in a splashed-ink style, using the so-called “boneless” technique (without outlines), which originated in the Tang dynasty of 8th-century China. Modern artists in both China and Japan continually revived ancient painting methods in innovative ways. Much of Beisen’s painting was based on the Chinese literati style known as nanga (southern painting). Quickly executed in cursory brushstrokes, as seen here, his abstracted forms and shapes are still recognizable as mottled decaying lotus leaves.

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This candelabra for 13 candles is often compared to the fanned tail of a peacock when the arms are aligned in this position or to a branching tree when they are rotated. Despite these subtle references to nature, the conical candle sockets and base are ornamented only with lines. They mark a departure from other Jugendstil, or Youth Style, designs that more directly imitate organic forms. Designer Bruno Paul was among the architects, craftsmen, and manufacturers who formed the Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk, or the United Workshops for Art in Craft. The United Workshops sought to produce affordable modern design and advance the stature of German art industries.

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An unknown artist used one of Rogier van der Weyden’s drawings to capture this tender moment between a mother and her baby. Rogier was renowned for his expressive, naturalistic figures, especially his iconic images of the Virgin and Child. Following a prevalent compositional type, the Virgin seems to present her son as he sits atop a gold brocade pillow resting on a stone parapet. The child holds a butterfly between his two fingers, a reference to death and rebirth, and thus a reminder of Christ’s coming sacrifice.

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On April 15, 1912, the world’s largest luxury liner, Titanic, sank off the coast of Newfoundland; of the 2,200 passengers, 1,507 died. Beckmann was inspired by news accounts to produce this enormous canvas in which he focused on the lifeboats of the Titanic while placing the distant, brightly lit liner against an iron-red night sky. Beckmann sought to emulate a 19th-century French tradition of grand paintings of contemporary events. Here, his theme is the struggle for survival; boats list dangerously or have overturned. The largest lifeboat is crammed with women and children including one passenger still in her violet evening gown and earrings. Beckmann employs a palette of vibrant green and blue coloring to highlight the nightmarish quality of a scene in which ghostly heads can clearly be seen floating in the water

Today’s object is featured in the Max Beckmann Collection Guide, a self-guided audio experience.

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Martin Johnson Heade celebrated early summer with hues of red, white, and blue in this painting. The artist loved flowers and described gathering each day “a beautiful bouquet for the breakfast table.” One might imagine him clipping the white corn lilies, red and bluish-purple heliotropes, and strawberries as they all ripened and bloomed in early June. Delicate heliotrope blossoms were especially popular with 19th-century gardeners, who compared their sweet fragrance to the aroma of cherry pie.

Heade painted this small still life early in his career, during an enormously productive six-month period in which he sought to raise funds for an extensive trip to South America. Over the next forty years, he painted nearly 150 still lifes, including a wide range of native and tropical flowers.

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Layered spirals—a signature motif for Al Loving—create a dynamic vertical composition, which seems to sprout new forms as it ascends the wall. Since his early career, the artist created sprawling configurations of repeated shapes large enough to take over walls. Loving, along with contemporaries such as Sam Gilliam, was interested in producing art that rejected traditional supports such as wooden stretchers or frames (learn more). For this work, he constructed a Plexiglas backing, which gives the collage a free-floating sculptural presence.

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The pearly shell-tiled surface of this cylindrical container shimmers with passing light. The prayer verse “Ave Maria,” or “Hail Mary,” a Christian cross, and other symbols decorate the object. Skilled laborers in Gujarāt, India, expertly carved the material by hand and fastened each piece in place using silver pins. Portuguese merchants and Franciscan missionaries commissioned boxes like this one for export to Europe for religious and secular purposes. The complex pattern and iridescence of the shell would have captured the imagination of those who saw it.

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The deep indigo hue of this agbada creates an intensely dramatic contrast between the aso oke cloth and the embroidered designs. Upon close inspection, the cloth reveals a delicate checked pattern alternating light- and dark-blue threads. Called etu in Yoruba, this subtle tonal effect is named for its similarity to the speckled feathers of a guinea fowl (Numida meleagris). The saturation of etu cloth corresponds to the length of time its threads were submerged in indigo dye, ranging from light (ofeefe) to medium (ayinrin) and dark (dudu). In Yoruba aesthetics, dudu signifies coolness, composure, and self-control, associating these qualities of an effective leader with the elite man who wore this robe.

Today’s object of the day is currently on view in Aso Oke: Prestige Cloth from Nigeria.

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The packed crowd in this city street seen from above is punctuated by an army of scythe-bearing skeletons personifying Death. A seeming regiment of them is dispersed throughout the mass of people, while a large, hairy-headed skeleton bears down on the roiling masses from the sky. The horrified expressions of the crowd, a drunkard vomiting from a tavern window on the right, hybrid demons in the sky, a burning rooftop, and a grimacing orb above it all contribute to a hellishly frightening scene.

Skeletons and imaginative demons have a long history in European religious imagery. James Ensor, a prominent painter in the Belgian avant-garde of the 1880s and 1890s, was well-schooled in the art of his predecessors. Yet it was his view of contemporary Belgian society, governed by a predominantly Catholic state, that fueled his often carnivalesque scenes.

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This box is decorated in the typical Korean technique known as hwagak (flowery horn). Ox-horn pieces are flattened through soaking and heating and then glued onto a wooden core. Colorful designs, including most of the sipjangsaeng (Ten Symbols of Longevity), were painted on the underside of the transparent ox-horn. The most important motifs are on the lid: two dragons, two phoenixes, and two cranes carrying the fungus of immortality, all shown amidst multicolored clouds. The box was likely made as a wedding gift for a high-ranking lady of the Korean aristocracy, who would have used it to store her jewelry, hair ornaments, and finger rings in jade or amber.

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Zigzags and stripes resolve into the triangular rooftops of houses, balloon-like poplar trees, and rolling pine forests. The Baltic Sea appears as a backdrop to the fishing village and artist colony of Nidden (present-day Nida, Lithuania), where Karl Schmidt-Rottluff stayed with Max Pechstein for four months in 1913. The paintings Schmidt-Rottluff made at Nidden transformed his art. Inspired by the landscape, he began to outline his motifs in black and repeat them as generic types for natural objects, giving his art a more patterned look.

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This cabinet for storing sheet music presents a taut arrangement of vertical and horizontal lines with clear solids and voids. The near-black finish accentuates its minimal form. Stylized flowers of colored woods, pewter, and copper inlaid in the door offer a subtle enrichment.

From 1900 until World War I (1914–1918), furniture maker Gustav Stickley was a leading contributor to the American Arts and Crafts movement. During the 1880s and 90s, Stickley was a successful manufacturer of middle-class Victorian furniture. He first explored consciously artistic furniture in 1900, gradually developing radically spare forms that evoked the sentiments of English designer William Morris, for whom simplicity was the essential requirement of modern furnishings. Stickley renamed his business the United Crafts and, in October 1901, began to publish The Craftsman magazine. In 1903 and 1904, the Stickley style was further refined in favor of attenuated forms embellished with inlaid ornament, as seen in this music stand.

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The knight Weislingen, wearing a yellow coat, is dramatically ambushed by three soldiers serving under his enemy, Götz. In this fictional scene from medieval Europe, Eugène Delacroix created a dynamic composition around the swirling forms of rearing and frightened horses. A great colorist, Delacroix juxtaposed contrasting colors of the blue saddle against the knight’s yellow garment and the soldier’s red tunic against the surrounding greenery. The 1773 play Götz van Berlichingen by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) inspired this painting.

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In this painting, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith combined imagery associated with Native American identity with marks reminiscent of American mid-century gestural abstraction. A stereotyped depiction of an Indigenous man, an ancient Mississippian vessel, an animal with a heart line from Great Plains paintings, and figures from Columbia River basketry and Northwest Coast textiles appear across the canvas.

In I See Red: Migration, Smith layered concepts and images to address issues facing Native peoples from the 1970s to the present, including land relationships and colonial displacement. Through techniques of appropriation, she foregrounded the rich and diverse history of Native American cultural production while challenging the celebration of Abstract Expressionism as indicative of American artistic exceptionalism.

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The profusion of decoration on this cross testifies to the superior skills of Spanish silversmiths as much as to the importance of the cross in Christian ritual. The many curved, angled, and radiating forms, as well as the narrative illustrations on front and back, were made by hammering the silver from the inside to create three-dimensional elements. This technique, called repoussé, allows for a lighter cross. Had the forms been cast in solid silver, the cross would not be as easy to carry in processions both within the church as well as to gravesites.

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Based on a poem by the ancient Roman poet Ovid, the colorful images on this dish would have tested its Renaissance owner’s knowledge of popular stories. Three moments from the lives of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis are portrayed on the dish, painted by one of the most illustrious pottery painters of the 16th century.

One day, Hermaphroditus chose to bathe in a pool (center), home to the water nymph Salmacis. Upon seeing him bathing, Salmacis was immediately enamored, indicated by Cupid appearing beside her at left. Her advances rejected, the nymph pleaded with the gods never to separate her from her lover. Salmacis’ wish was granted, shown at right, where she and Hermaphroditus share a single arm, a reference to their ultimate fusion into a single being with both male and female characteristics.

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In 1873 the prolific illustrator Gustave Doré went salmon fishing in Scotland; the trip provided him with inspiration for a series of grand landscapes. This dramatic work is animated by rays of light bursting through the clouds and falling on the distant lake. A tiny figure in red, on the path at bottom left, provides a color accent contrasting with the dominant greens of the composition. Doré evoked a vision of the Scottish landscape as sublime and awe-inspiring.

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Paul Cézanne used his drawing materials sparely in his late watercolors as seen in this view of trees bordering a lake. He depicted the lake entirely with the negative space of the blank paper; he drew only the shorelines, allowing the body of water to be defined by its perimeter. Each individual brushstroke, even when layered with multiple transparent colors, remains clearly defined on the paper. The colors oscillate in the viewer’s eye between individual paintstrokes and constructed landscape.

This watercolor addresses many of these and other pressing questions about representation that the artist posed with his art throughout his long career. Although he exhibited early on with the Impressionists, like them, he was excluded from the art establishment of his own time until his final years. However, the abstract qualities of his art endeared him to generations who came after him, from the Cubists in the 1910s to Color Field painters in the 1960s.

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The elaborately carved figures and symbols seen on this column are Maya hieroglyphs, a writing system that mixes pictorial representations with phonetic signs. Most Maya monuments focus extraordinary emphasis on chronological precision as they describe detailed political histories of competing city-states. In Maya writing, dots record single units and bars record five. Texts typically begin in the upper left, moving to the right and top to bottom in double columns. Here, the first nine glyphs record the date in an array of different Maya calendars that correspond to a day in April, 715. On that day, the ruler of Bonampak commemorated the 13th anniversary of his reign. The text goes on to document his status as the vassal of a Tonina ruler known as K’inich B’aaknal Chaak, ‘Great-Sun Bone-Place Rain God’.

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The figure of Amitayus (Measureless Life) holds a vase of amrta, an elixir of immortality that symbolizes the transcendence of birth and death through enlightenment. In this sculpture, Amitayus is depicted with crown and jewels as a sambhogakaya Buddha, revealing the full splendor of enlightenment. This finely crafted example shows the wide-ranging influence of the Pala dynasty of eastern India (8th–12th centuries). Although this bronze was not produced by the Palas, its creators imitated their style of ornamentation and the use of inlaid metals to decorate the form. Ever since the height of the Pala dynasty, Pala-influenced images have been produced in regions ranging from India, Bangladesh, and Nepal to Tibet, China, and Indonesia.

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Elias Sime collected motherboards and chips from inside computers, cutting and collaging them together to create this abstraction. The work resembles an aerial view of a landscape; however, it does not represent a specific place. Sime borrows the aesthetics of topographical and satellite views to expand the characteristics of landscape art. Technological advancements dependent upon the same materials used for Sime’s work have enabled us to see the world from new perspectives and connect humans across vast distances.

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This mural fragment shows a richly dressed Teotihuacan nobleman speaking as he carries an incense bag in his right hand. The large scroll coming from his mouth does not contain words, but instead is filled with shell and floral motifs. Directly in front of the nobleman is the small remnant of a glyph, perhaps his title or name. The palette, limited to a range of reds and pinks, suggests that the mural was made during the last years of Teotihuacan’s power. Murals decorated the walls of the city’s large apartment compounds; this one was once part of a larger room with many very similarly dressed figures, yet all with distinct name glyphs. Their processional arrangement on the compound’s lower walls may have guided visitors and residents to a small shrine.

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The figure of Plenty holding a cornucopia and standing atop this extravagant assemblage embodies the ideal of copious display that characterized eighteenth-century dining tables. From her position above an urn-shaped bowl supported by winged figures, Plenty surveys three tiers of pierced baskets and dishes intended to contain pickles, nuts, or sweets, and pairs of cruets and casters for condiments consumed during the savory courses of the meal.

The centerpiece probably matched the dishes used on the table, since it is made from cream-colored earthenware, which was both inexpensive and extremely fashionable in the mid- to late eighteenth century. The architectural motifs and decoration of swags of foliage and flowers signal the reemergence of the classical style as the latest fashion in the late eighteenth-century.

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Cool, bright moonlight bathes the Selden homestead, built before the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). The large tree—as old as the house—casts its long shadow over the buildings, as the stars in the clear sky twinkle through its wide, protective branches. The homestead is located in Hadlyme, Connecticut, only 10 miles from where Willard Metcalf spent his summers painting as a member of the well‑known art colony in Old Lyme.

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Enrique Chagoya exploded ethnic stereotypes in the splashes of color that march across this print. Among the most legible features are the googly eyes and manner of dress. The small images scattered between the figures gesture to a history of capturing individuals with the goal of categorizing and formalizing difference, and the harm that ensued and still continues. Drawing on his own experiences of living within and between cultures, Chagoya’s title suggests the spectrum of commonalities without degrees of superiority.

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The features of the large monster mask on the body of this incense burner are enhanced with fine inlays of gold and silver. These elements are related to the erroneous Ming dynasty belief that ancient bronzes were set with precious metals. Although the shape of this vessel resembles ancient tripods, the decorative inlays, fine wood cover, and semiprecious agate knob reveal the highly ornamental style of the late Ming dynasty.

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Paul Klee shows a bird in flight with a tiny head, deep red neck, and wide outstretched wings rendered in sweeping veils of color. The artist associated birds and their free movement with detachment from earthly concerns; he even compared them to angels. Klee used the coarser, reverse side of a commercially prepared canvas, contrasting its rough surface with thin, translucent paint glazes. Inspired by the drawings of children, Klee explored the unconscious as a means to access primal artistic impulses.

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Beneath the central stand of trees, Bacchus and Ariadne are surrounded by nymphs and satyrs who revel in wine and sensuous display. Their story comes from the popular poem “Metamorphoses” by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. One part describes how the Cretan princess Ariadne enabled the hero Theseus to navigate a labyrinth holding the fabled bull monster, the Minotaur. Having promised to take Ariadne with him, Theseus instead abandoned her on the Greek island of Naxos, where she was comforted by the Roman god of wine, Bacchus, as seen in this painting. Johann Georg Platzer’s exuberant depiction perfectly embodies the lively compositions of the 18th century. Arching limbs and curving torsos provide undulating rhythms that energize the painting. An array of gilt silver vessels adorns the central foreground, enhancing the sense of luxury and opulence.

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Intertwining black and red spirals painted on the body of this owl contrast with more realistic facial markings. Artists associated with the ancient city of Paquime, and nearby archaeological sites in present-day northern Chihuahua, Mexico, frequently painted figural vessels with a combination of abstract and naturalistic imagery. Owls represent one form among a staggering range of Casas Grandes vessels, including humans, various animals, and an array of non-figural jar shapes.

Casas Grandes ceramics reconfigure designs from older southwestern painted vessels while using inventive polychrome palettes. This artistic revival likely presented the past as an ideal age, a concept that would support leaders’ claims to distinguished ancestry.

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Here, the 3rd-century Christian martyr St. Lawrence distributes the Church’s treasures to those in need. Through vivid color contrasts, selective highlights, and the saint’s extended left hand, the artist draws viewers into this scene. Bernardo Strozzi has captured the sumptuous grouping of richly ornamented objects that almost burst out of the pictorial space. Close observation of those who gather to receive the gifts reveals the impact of the saint’s generosity.

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A man in an infantry uniform dances with a taller woman, the splayed fingers of his white-gloved hand sharply illuminated against her green skirt. Three fellow soldiers observe in the background; the tallest may be a self-portrait of André Derain who painted this work during a year of military service. The artist takes a humorous approach to his subject, presenting the dance as an awkward social ritual. This early picture is notable for its areas of bold, flat color, anticipating Derain’s experiments with Fauvism.

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Aoki Mokubei made one hundred identical teapots bearing the four-character inscription from an ancient Chinese tea poem, “He who desires to know the pure, cool taste of flower buds [tea] must be the man of sleeping clouds and creeping stones.” The compact body of this pot is unglazed, and the rough, wheel-thrown spout, handle, and cover are simple and well-proportioned. Mokubei made the pots for a tea gathering planned for the spring of 1833 at Kitano Shrine, Kyoto. The grand affair was to be in celebration of the festival of plum blossoms for which the shrine was famous. But the party never took place because Mokubei died unexpectedly. His daughter gave the hundred teapots, the last Mokubei ever made, to his friends to remember him by. Only three or four of the teapots are thought to have survived.

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George Caleb Bingham, a Missouri artist, began his career as an essentially self-taught portrait painter, but eventually turned to genre painting, which he saw as an outlet for his fascination with the subjects found along Missouri’s rivers.

This painting is an idealized scene of river life in Missouri during the 1840s. It depicts a quiet moment of leisure among six raftsmen aboard a simple raft. While most of the men are preoccupied with the card game, one man gently glides the boat along the calm, mirrored surface of the water, while another seems absorbed in thought. Always attentive to detail, Bingham emphasizes this casual atmosphere by depicting two of the men barefoot, with a pair of discarded shoes visible at right, and the charred remains of the previous night’s fire in the foreground. The artist even invites the viewer to participate in this intimate occasion by placing the viewer at the foot of the raft.

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Native to North American countries and territories, the sixty-one plants and animals in Descendant are all declining in number. Many of them, like the hawksbill sea turtle, are classified as critically endangered; a few species are even presumed to be extinct. The Oahu tree snail, for instance, is one of more than seven hundred different species of land snails once found throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Today more than fifty-two of these native snail species are considered extinct, having largely succumbed to pest control practices.

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This lively print by Bavarian-born Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel was used for upholstery and curtains in the library of a house in the Moravian town of Winkelsdorf. Built for banker and industrialist Otto Primavesi and his wife Eugenia, it showed the couples’ passion for Viennese progressive art and design. The Villa Primavesi, as it was called, was just one of many important Wiener Werkstätte commissions located in the present-day Czech Republic.

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This monumental female figure represents the largest sculpture that Henry Moore made in the unconventional medium of concrete. Imitating the mottled colors of natural stone, Moore achieved a polychrome surface by adding red, brown, and black pigments to wet concrete without stirring the mixture uniformly. Once dried, Moore carved into the concrete. The pose of this figure, influenced by ancient American sculpture, parallels an interest in art of this culture by Moore and the Surrealists who exhibited together during the 1930s.

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This folding fan features a painting of butterflies and flowers accompanied by an inscription on one side. On the reverse, the calligraphy transcribes 14 five-character regulated verses (each with a total of 40 characters) by the poet Cen Shen (715–770) of the Tang dynasty, and also includes a dedicatory inscription.

The fan has two thick bamboo outer guards as well as 28 thin bamboo inner ribs. Two fan-shaped sheets of paper—one for the painting and the other for the calligraphy—are pasted on either side of the ribs. The outer and inner ribs are fastened together near the base of the fan and the ends are capped by round bamboo rivets.

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Still Life revels in the textures of translucent grapes and fuzz of peach skin. The unadorned background emphasizes the delicate silhouette of grape leaves and tendrils. The bee and caterpillar add a sense of the momentary to an otherwise seemingly timeless theme. These details draw us closer to the image, increasing our sense of intimacy with it by inviting careful observation.

This work is one of the earliest still life paintings made in the United States. The artist, John Johnston, worked in his father’s engraving and decorative painting business. He served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and was injured and imprisoned by the British for over a year before returning to Boston to open his own studio.

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This lamp’s shade is a complex grid of intersecting rectangles and squares overhanging a cube-shaped light box. Large and small squares of colored iridescent glass dot the shade’s perimeter and corners. In its form, the lamp embodies the home it was designed to illuminate. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School structures, like the Little House, are long and low with gently sloping roofs, sheltering overhangs, and projecting terraces. These design features echo the midwestern landscape’s “quiet level.” Leaded glass lanterns, sconces, table lamps as well as windows and screens were important elements in Wright’s Prairie School homes. These and other custom-designed furnishings, such as this ceiling lamp, developed from a shared language of motifs and produced a unified design experience. Wright was an influential member of the Prairie School, the Midwest’s greatest contribution to the American Arts and Crafts movement. Wright transcended both his midwestern roots and an American context. He became an international figure who was widely published and emulated, and whose influence can be measured around the globe.

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This sculpture represents the main character of William Shakespeare’s play Othello, written around 1603. The portrait captures the moment when Othello tragically realizes the innocence of his wife, Desdemona, whom he has killed out of jealousy. The handkerchief he holds was planted by an enemy as false evidence of Desdemona’s betrayal. Pietro Calvi’s dignified depiction of the distraught Othello with a tear rolling down his cheek may be based upon the famous performances of Ira Aldridge (1807–1867), the first Black actor to play Othello in England beginning in 1825.

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The distinct colors—deep green and mustard yellow—of this mold-made ceramic cup are obtained from a lead glaze developed in the 1st century BC in the eastern Mediterranean. More fluid and less prone to cracking, this glaze was a distinct improvement over other contemporary glazing technologies. It has been suggested that these colors were specifically selected to emulate the patina of weathered bronze and gilded silver. This vessel shape is common in ceramic, glass, and metal.

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Robert Delaunay’s Eiffel Tower represents this famed Parisian landmark, which was a symbol of modern technology in the early 20th century. The dark steel structure has been transformed into rich tones of yellow, orange, and lavender; the surrounding gardens are abstracted patterns of green and yellow. Influenced by fauvism, an art movement that championed the use of vivid colors, Delaunay affirmed that “everything is color in nature.” The artist used an aerial viewpoint, probably informed by his own background as an early aviator.

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This is a Chinese-style flower basket with symmetrical proportions. It has four bamboo lengths on the sides that extend beyond the square base as short legs. The sides with tight twill plaiting (ajiro-ami) rise upward and outward to a straight cylindrical neck that terminates with a circular rim. The loop handle is made up of two narrow bamboo stalks tied together with rattan at the top center. It is attached with additional rattan to the basket at the rim and the widest point of the body. The lacquered bamboo insert is supported by a base with square plaiting (yotsume-ami) reinforced with diagonal cross-bracing.

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With incredible economy of line, Käthe Kollwitz depicted an intimate scene of a mother resting with her baby. It is a rare moment of peace among her subjects, most of which center on the war’s devastating impact on women and children. The artist’s youngest son was killed in World War I at age 18. This knowledge adds a layer of intensity to the image as a personal memory of loss.

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Following the Renaissance convention for representing the virtue of Charity, this artist has presented a beautiful young woman who feeds one child and guides the other. Intricately carved with fine details such as curly hair, delicate facial features, and elegantly folded drapery, this figure is a wonderful example of sculpture produced in the southern Netherlands.

Models of Charity such as this served as an example for moral Christian behavior, selflessly giving to others in need. Charity was one of three theological virtues, along with Faith and Hope, endorsed by the Church.

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In this satirical painting, George Grosz presents three card-playing men in a Berlin café illuminated by an eerie red glow. The bloated figures represent the well-fed, greedy leaders of capitalist society, whom the artist saw as the source of many social ills. Two of the men glance sideways with beady eyes while the third collects his winnings. Painted in the midst of World War I, this work reveals the artist’s keen sense of social injustice while also showing his fascination with metropolitan nightlife.

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To make this work of art, Dyani White Hawk painted thousands of short vertical lines in subtle whites, blues, and pinks that recall historical quillwork by Native artists. Quillwork involves softening and dying stiff porcupine quills and affixing them onto birchbark or hide in decorative patterns. On the Plains, the art of quillwork was primarily done by women and carries sacred significance. White Hawk brought this cultural understanding to her meticulously worked painting, giving each line the attention that quill artists gave to their quilling. The vertical lines overlay a barely-visible background of silver and gold in a subtle diamond pattern that references various histories of geometric abstraction.

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The shoreline of the Charles River in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, horizontally bisects this small canvas. Factories and industrial buildings stand alongside churches and courthouses, conveying the city’s importance as the center of manufacturing for the greater Boston region. Cambridge Gas Company used the conical building at the painting’s center to store gas for lighting the city. The billowing smokestacks at the far right belonged to the New England Glass Company (1818–1888), among the most significant early American glass manufacturers.

The West Boston Bridge, depicted at the far right, was personally relevant to the artist, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow. His father, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, had published a poem titled The Bridge (1845), a meditation on love that established this bridge’s fame.

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The flower blossoms and twisting foliage engraved on this bowl were first outlined with a diamond-tipped stylus and then shaded to suggest the effect of light. This naturalistic treatment of the flowers and leaves reflects a new interest in realism and botanical accuracy that emerged in the early 1600s. Botanical prints and illustrated books provided models for ornamental artists working in a range of media including glass, silver, furniture, and woven and embroidered textiles. The technique of diamond-point engraving was revived in the 1500s in Venice, Italy, a center of European glassmaking and the Indian diamond trade.

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The half-man, half-goat satyr Marsyas at left, paid dearly for his arrogance in thinking he could rival a god. He found a flute and learned to play it so well that he challenged Apollo, the ancient Greek god of music, on the right, to a contest. The victorious god cut off the satyr’s skin in punishment for his pride. The surprised look on Marsyas’ face, in shadow, contrasts vividly with the calm and illuminated demeanor of the god who coolly slices the creature’s flesh.

It is no accident that the earthbound satyr stands before a tree, symbolic of the woodland, while the god is silhouetted against the sky. Bartolomeo Manfredi may have been a student of the Italian artist Caravaggio, from whom he adapted the close-up format of the picture and the keen attention to tactile surface qualities evident in Marsyas’ fur loincloth.

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Without head, hands, feet, or any other attributes or context, it is quite difficult to determine the identity of this figure. Based on the posture and ornaments, it might or might not be the goddess Parvati, wife of Siva. What this sculpture does convey, however, is the consummate importance of the female in Indian art. From nature spirits depicted on architectural decorations to all-powerful goddesses at the center of religious practice, females are considered to represent fecundity, creativity, and power. This figure would probably have appeared on the exterior of a temple, in a sculptural niche alongside other, similar sculptures. The use of sandstone places its origin in northern or central India, and the beautifully detailed jewelry is consistent with 12th century design.

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George Caleb Bingham began his career as an artist by meeting the demand for portraits among the prominent citizens of Missouri. Successful East Coast painters did not make regular trips west, but the inhabitants of the western states were still anxious to have images of their loved ones. In this self-portrait, Bingham did not emphasize his identity as an artist, but rather followed the same conventions he would employ to depict his well-to-do sitters. In this way, the painting could serve as a model and an advertisement for his work.

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Precisely depicted in shades of gray and taupe, an isolated stone hovers before a solid orange background. Without any other objects to reference for scale, it is impossible to know whether this rock is a tiny pebble or a massive boulder. René Magritte, a prominent member of the surrealist movement, painted disorienting and dreamlike subjects in a style of meticulous realism. The artist’s choice of title here may be an ironic play on the pervasive sense of silence in this painting.

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This lantern features panels of iridescent leaded glass depicting birds in flight, gently stepped contours, smooth edges, ebony pins, and a dramatic overhanging roof. These details reflect inspiration drawn from traditional Chinese furniture and Japanese prints and architecture. This lantern (and another in the Museum’s collection) were made originally for the Robert B. Blacker House, in Pasadena, California, the first of the architectural firm Greene and Greene’s “ultimate bungalows.”

For this expansive home, the Greene brothers designed interior woodwork, furniture, stained glass, and lighting to create an integrated artistic environment. They worked closely with skilled craftsmen like glass artisan Emil Lange and cabinetmaker Peter Hall. Their expert handcraftsmanship distinguishes the Greenes’ furnishings from any other produced during the American Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century.

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This comic book cover shows superheroes at dramatic moments of combat. Artist Mark Newport hand-stitched threads of embroidery floss over the main characters, creating a soft texture that diminishes their ferocity. Newport explains:

I usually pick covers where the hero is in danger or in a moment that seems fraught. I predominantly use two stitches for the figures: the French knot and the bullion stitch. French knots make various sizes of dots which reminds me of the halftone Ben-Day dots used to print old comic books. The bullion stitch makes more linear stitches [similar to] crosshatching from drawings and muscle striations. The stitches on borders and around letters on the covers refer back to the embroidery sampler tradition. 

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The especially long neck of this unusual vase is decorated with two sinuous dragons chasing a flaming jewel above mountains and waves. The elongated neck and the triple openings identify this vessel as an arrow vase, a vessel that served as the target in an ancient Chinese drinking game. The goal was to get a short, feathered arrow into one of the three openings at the top of the vase. The loser was required to drink a cup of wine.

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In this scene, a train puffs across the bridge as sunlight falls through the mist and creates shimmering patterns on the river surface. Claude Monet painted a series of about 30 paintings of the Charing Cross railroad bridge spanning the River Thames, each highlighting different light and weather effects. Monet was a noted Anglophile and painted this view on one of three visits to London between 1899 and 1901. He noted, “I love London…what I love, above all, is the fog.”

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Lacking carved decoration and lush textiles and trims, this chair’s only ornaments are black-painted rings and machine-like conical finials at the tops and ends of the arms. This patented armchair features diagonal front legs that support a cantilevered seat and fabric-wrapped steel webbing. The chair’s modern mechanical style equals its innovative manufacturing techniques. The maker George Hunzinger received more than twenty patents for mechanical and convertible furniture and improvements to their design and manufacture.

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Man Ray mastered a darkroom technique known as solarization used in this image of an iris flower. Through a selective re-exposure of a print during development, a chemical phenomenon causes a reversal of tones, particularly in areas where there is a sharp contrast of light and dark. Man Ray solarized the contours of this flower, and as a result, the brilliant whites of the petals seem to well up from a pool of darkness, radiating an otherworldly glow.

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This painting shows Sassanian king Bahrām V (r.420–438), ruler of the vast Empire of Iranians, visiting Princess Pari Naz of Khwarazm in the Green Pavilion on a Monday. A famous Persian epic tale imagined that Bahrām married seven princesses, who each lived in a colored, domed pavilion that aligned with a planet and day of the week. The pavilion here is green and corresponded with the moon, considered a planet in the 15th-century.

Bahrām V and Pari Naz are seated on cushions while female attendants serve wine and play music. Other women of his court look in from upper balconies and windows. Passages of Persian script are visible above and below the image. This detached sheet is from an illuminated manuscript of the Khamsa, a collection of five long poems by Ilyas Yusuf Nizami (c.1141–c.1209) from Ganja in present-day Azerbaijan. The Khamsa includes the Haft Paykar (Seven Portraits), a narrative poem composed c.1197, describing the exploits of Bahrām V. Due to his love of hunting wild ass (gūr), he became known as Bahrām Gūr.

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Faded from a much deeper purple and covered in gold thread and sequins, this dalmatic, a type of Christian liturgical vestment, represents the height of 17th-century opulence. The fine interlacing bands on the tunic’s ground are called strapwork. Its cuffs and square central panel are decorated with arabesques, dense patterns of intertwining plants adopted from the Muslim world by earlier European artists.

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Smelt Brook Falls shows a jagged, rushing waterfall that fills the canvas with its stark white forms heavily outlined in black against the bold rust color of the surrounding landscape. Marsden Hartley often distorted and simplified nature’s elements, giving his forms a monumentality that expressed his reverence for the mystical qualities of nature. Hartley declared, “I love falling water—no lake or pond can give me what a waterfall can.”

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Asymmetrical in form, this gourd-shaped ewer is wrapped in its own leaf, secured with twisting vines that encircle the pitcher from top to bottom. Its lush surface is decorated with a thick, putty-colored glaze that enhances its organic form. This ewer is one of the few ceramic works that Louis Majorelle, the son of a cabinetmaker and ceramist, designed. Most likely, Majorelle collaborated with his friend, the sculptor Ernest Bussière, who translated Majorelle’s drawing into a three-dimensional model, which Keller & Guérin then fabricated. Majorelle even discretely formed his initials at the end of one of the twisting corkscrew vines. Only a small number of such ewers were made, each with a different glaze.

To honor the retirement of Brent R. Benjamin, The Barbara B. Taylor Director, from March 23 through June 30, Object of the Day will feature a selection of 100 transformative works of art acquired during his 22-year tenure at the Museum.

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The artist has assembled sweets and fruits, including apples, sugared almonds, gingersticks, a lemon, and an orange, in a way that seems casual but was actually the result of careful planning. Diagonals echo other diagonals while the apple and reflective plate are offset by the citrus fruits. The picture may refer to the vanity of the physical world since the ripened apple exhibits decay and mice sometimes symbolize death or sin. It could also be a celebration of costly confections.

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In this caricature of French society, men strut like pigeons, pick-pockets eye the jewelry of distracted ladies, and hairstyles are a yard high. The Palais Royal in the center of Paris was owned by Duke Philippe d’Orléans, the King’s cousin, who supported his lavish lifestyle by building a large gallery with shops in his palace’s garden. Considered the prototype for enclosed commercial passages, it was the most notorious and well-attended spot for fashionable crowds to parade.

Philibert-Louis Debucourt was a French painter and printmaker especially known for his innovations in color printing which simulate the look of watercolor. His nuanced and delicate colors are exceptionally well-preserved in this impression. The Palais Royal Gallery’s Walk became one of Debucourt’s most successful printing ventures, leading to the creation of a companion piece five years later, The Public Promenade, also in the Museum’s collection.

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Jules Breton regularly visited the coastal region of Brittany in the west of France and here represented an idealized Breton peasant in profile against the wind. The artist was fascinated by the “mystic wildness” of Breton women and focused on this peasant’s compassion for a wounded bird while other healthy birds glide in the distance. This work was shown in 1881 at the first special exhibition at the newly founded St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, the predecessor of the Saint Louis Art Museum.

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This box features a balanced design of red azalea and yellow double-flowered kerria. Set against an orange ground, simply carved yellow-lacquered flower heads are balanced by strong black-lacquered serrated leaves. These elements complement the luscious red-lacquered azalea, subtly carved in undulating form with small black leaves. The crispness and depth of carving is staggering. The overall 6 millimeters of depth would have required a build-up of over 200 layers of black, yellow, and red lacquer before the work of carving could begin.

Inside the box, a plain black lacquer finish provides a setting for the simple inkstone and golden water-dropper decorated with cherry blossom petals carried in a flowing stream. The lacquer artist Tsuishu Yōzei XX is credited with revitalizing and modernizing the carved lacquer art form in the early 20th century. Born in Kyōto, he exhibited his work widely within Japan as well as at the 1900 Paris Exposition and the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, where he won an important prize.

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Sam Gilliam soaked and poured paint onto this canvas, which he crumpled and tied up until it dried, creating a bold and vibrant surface. Later he unfurled the canvas and cut it into shapes that he combined to hang directly on the wall without a frame or support structure. Consequently, this painting drapes, gaps, bulges, and doubles over, emphasizing the intrinsic properties of his materials—how acrylic pools and canvas sags, for example.

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Small flowers and leaves sparkling with metal threads grace this delicate cotton textile. Ottoman embroiderers adopted aspects of botanical naturalism introduced through European art objects, books, and drawings imported in the early 18th century. The cultural exchange was mutual. Just prior, in the late 17th century, “little Muslin-Napkins, edg’d with Gold, Silver, and Silk Border[s]” were imported into Europe, along with coffee, according to the French merchant Pierre de La Roque.

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This mask displays a spectrum of colors, including white, black, red, blue, and orange, typically seen in Yaka arts. Kaolin, or white clay, enhanced the visibility of the mask. Blue and orange lines descending from the eyes might suggest the sufferings of a boy’s initiation into adulthood, such as circumcision or hazing.

Masks such as this appeared in pairs at celebrations marking the end of boys’ n-khanda initiation. Rather than wearing it over the head or face, the masquerader covered his face during performance by holding the wood handle protruding from the bottom. A ruff of raffia fibers descending from the wooden mask and its structured cloth crest would have concealed the dancer’s hand and forearm.

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The biomorphic shapes that characterize Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture from the 1940s feature prominently in this model of the lobby ceiling he designed for the American Stove Company in St. Louis. The free-form contours functioned as recessed light fixtures, but they also transformed the ceiling into a sculpted landscape that guided visitors through the lobby, making them “feel better, feel happier to be there.” The American Stove Company building, designed by Harris Armstrong, and this ceiling exemplify the modern architecture commissioned in St. Louis during the mid-20th century. This model was used by plasterers to construct the actual ceiling.

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This etching, based on a passage from the biblical New Testament, portrays a scene of miraculous healing. On their way to the temple, Peter and John, followers of Jesus, encounter a man unable to walk since birth asking for money. Peter says, “I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” In the print, Rembrandt van Rijn showed Peter raising his hands to bless the man. The biblical passage goes on to describe how the man then stands and walks. Billows of smoke roll out of the great basin behind Peter, amplifying the miraculous force of his gesture.

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The silver inlay on this bottle is brilliantly highlighted against the black background. The bottle is composed of a zinc alloy that turns black when bathed in an acidic solution. Originating in the city of Bidar in India, this type of vessel is known as Bidri ware. It bears the type of floral decoration that is a major theme in the arts of the Islamic courts of India.

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This painting is notable for its gestural brushwork and touches of color, as in the bright green hills in the distance. Like many of Charles-François Daubigny’s pictures, the scene is animated by the figure of a washerwoman. The artist’s paintings were often criticized for being “impressions” rather than fully realized works. Daubigny was an important early supporter of the Impressionists, and his own work suggests the influence of the younger artists.

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This large earthenware headrest takes the form of a chubby boy reclining with his large head supported by a sausage-shaped pillow with flat-cut ends. The figure has a lively expression, with his open mouth showing detailed teeth and his hair gathered in three small knots behind his ears and high on his forehead. He wears a loose tunic over pantaloons and round-toed slippers as well as bracelets around his wrists and ankles. He supports a gently curved platform on his side to serve as the headrest. Traces of white slip, a mixture of clay and water, on the surface suggest that its maker intended it to resemble porcelain.

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On the left of this ivory sculpture, a lion sinks his teeth into the hindquarters of a stag whose head appears at the upper left-hand corner. Farther to the right, a hound bites the back of a reclining goat, which, seemingly unperturbed, munches calmly on a spikey leaf. The medieval carver adapted these animal forms to the rhythms of the undulating vine, inventively adjusting the popular animal interlace pattern to the narrow width of the relief’s border. Ivory, valued for its creamy color and exotic nature, was a favorite material for creating opulent objects in the 13th century. While it is not known what this fine carving originally adorned, it may have embellished a piece of furniture or a musical instrument.

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Renée Sintenis was a prominent sculptor in early 20th century Germany. In this mythological subject, she depicts Daphne changing into a tree. The nymph’s hair turns to leaves while foliage appears around her legs and sprouts from her armpits. Daphne was pursued by the Greek god Apollo and was transformed into a tree in order to escape the god’s unwanted advances. Sintenis affirmed, “I tried to capture the beginning of this magic transformation in plastic form.”

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This large sketch for a church ceiling is organized into three main groups of figures to make it comprehensible to viewers standing on the floor below. At the top, Jesus, the central figure of Christianity, holds a flag and kneels in front of a cross, a symbol of his death. Wearing bright blue in the middle, Mary looks up at her son, Jesus, as she beckons to St. Helena, kneeling at the left. The saint presents her own son, the emperor Constantine. In the lowest grouping, the archangel St. Michael vanquishes a group of heretics and topples Satan from his throne.

The artist presented this finished sketch to Pope Benedict XIV (1675–1758) for approval before painting the ceiling of the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, where his work can still be seen today. The painting was a part of the pope’s effort to refurbish the Roman basilica he served before ascending to the papacy.

This work of art inspired an award-winning floral interpretation by Jeana Reisinger in 2015. See the arrangement and enjoy this year’s virtual Art in Bloom.

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The rich variety of colorful, ornately patterned fabrics gives this quilt an eye-catching energy. The center medallion—two blocks of the eight-pointed “Ohio Star” pattern—is surrounded by pieced borders of triangles, rectangles, and squares cut from printed chintz fabrics. Four long pieces with blue-and-white, garland-wrapped pillars form the quilt’s outer borders, with the strong vertical emphasis of the pillar designs ideally suited for the border edges. The random placement of the patterns and colors of the geometric-shaped pieces creates a visually interesting composition with a fresh, improvisational feel.

We don’t know the name of this quilt’s maker, but she likely lived in the eastern United States where imported chintz fabrics were readily available in the early decades of the 19th century, when this quilt was created.

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The serene, introspective gaze of this Buddha is enhanced by the figure’s formal stance and the white, cool character of the marble. Traces of old pigment indicate that this sculpture was originally painted to show the richly embroidered, colorful patchwork silks of a priest’s robe. There are two rare features depicted in this work. The first, just under the left shoulder, is an inverted fan shape that represents the gathering of cloth in a clasp. The second, nestled between the ankles, is a fruit-like motif interpreted as a lotus bud or a wish-granting pearl (cintāmaṇi), both symbols of purity.

Based on stylistic analysis and other comparable works, this statue may have been made either during the final years of the Northern Qi dynasty or the early years of the Sui dynasty. This standing statue would have been supported on a lotus pedestal that surmounted a square base, carved from the same marble.

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