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The Cloisters is one of the museums of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Cloisters is located in Fort Tryon Park near the northern tip of Manhattan island on a hill overlooking the Hudson River. The Cloisters include the museum building and the adjacent 4 acres (16,000 m²). The collection, which includes a small chapel and various artifacts incorporates elements from five medieval French cloisters: Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Bonnefont-en-Comminges, Trie-en-Bigorre, and Froville. These disassembled European buildings were reassembled in the park (1934/38) setting with gardens planted according to horticultural information culled from various medieval documents and artifacts.
Among the famous works of art held at the Cloisters are seven south Netherlandish tapestries depicting "The Hunt of the Unicorn", Robert Campin's Merode Altarpiece, and the Romanesque altar cross known as the "Cloisters Cross" or "Bury Cross." The Cloisters also holds many medieval manuscripts and illuminated books, including the Limbourg brothers' Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry and Jean Pucelle's book of hours for Jeanne d'Evreux.
The museum and adjacent park were created thanks to an endowment grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Besides purchasing this land and donating it to the city, Rockefeller also purchased and donated to the State of New Jersey several hundred acres of the New Jersey Palisades on the other side of the Hudson River in order to preserve the view for the museum.
See also
Literature
- James J. Rorimer, The Cloisters. The Building and the Collection of Mediaeval Art in Fort Tryon Park, 11th edition, New York 1951.
External links
Manhattan | Museums in New York City | Metropolitan Museum of Art | Art museums and galleries in the United States | European medieval architecture in North America
"The Cloisters"