Curator's Cut 5

More of this enjoyable series of short videos from the Metropolitan Museum filmed during lockdown highlighting recent exhibitions and specific works of art.

These are emailed to members and patrons once a week, so I hope it is OK to share the links. Most take the form of a talk from the curator’s home with a powerpoint presentation. A number of the curators have picked works which are particularly poignant at this time.

Episode 25 : A Visit to Brittany with Henri Rivière

Ashley Dunn, Assistant Curator, Drawings and Prints, introduces the work of French artist Henri Rivière (1864–1951), a pioneer in the renewal of the woodcut technique and coluor printmaking in the late nineteenth-century. She focuses on two new acquisitions a watercolour “Boats Anchored off Treboul” and a woodcut “The Winnowers”. 

Episode 26 : Cups of Ancient Iran

Associate Curator Sarah Graff, who studies ancient Mesopotamian objects made of clay, explores connections with the ancient past through these conical ceramic cups made by skilled potters in Iran over six thousand years ago.

Episode 27 : Ancient Egypt at Home: 100 Years of Meketre

Adela Oppenheim, Egyptian art curator, looks at the detailed tomb models of the Middle Kingdom Egyptian official Meketre (ca. 1981–1975 B.C.) consisting of boat, workshop, and garden models, along with figures carrying offerings. Are they just a fascinating intimate glimpse into the daily life of the ancient Egyptians or did they have a ritual function?

Episode 28 : Drums of Power and Resistance

Jayson Kerr Dobney, Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge of the Department of Musical Instruments, looks at two different drums in  the museum’s collection that have important symbolic meaning. He compares the opposing meaning of a lion rampant in a crown on a silver kettle drum from the court of George III and an Ashanti drum from 1940s Ghana.

Episode 29 : Image and Text in the Ancient Near East

Yelena Rakic, Associate Curator in Ancient Near Eastern Art, as she explores how image and text work together to create meaning on the Stele of Ushumgal created almost 5000 years ago in modern day Iraq. 

Episode 30 : Inca Icon

Joanne Pillsbury, Andrall E. Pearson Curator of the Arts of the Ancient Americas, takes a look at a remarkable tapestry-woven Inca tunic, a strikingly bold icon of one the largest empires of the pre-modern world.

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