The Cloisters

The St-Guilhem Cloister, parried capitals; The Cloisters collection (a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) contains approximately five thousand European medieval works of art, with a particular emphasis on pieces dating from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries. Among the famous works of art held at the Cloisters are seven south Netherlandish tapestries depicting The Hunt of the Unicorn,and Robert Campin's Mérode Altarpiece. 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 building housing the collection is itself a work of medieval art. It is a composite structure, incorporating 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 Fort Tryon Park (1934-1938) in a setting with gardens planted according to horticultural information culled from various medieval documents and artifacts. Notable works of architecture include the Cuxa cloister, with an adjacent Chapter House; and the Fuentidueña Apse from a chapel in the province of Segovia (Castilla y León, Spain). The museum is largely due to two collectors and patrons; John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and George Grey Barnard, an American sculptor and assiduous collector of medieval art. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/4/2008