CULTURE AND SOCIETY

The Met Cloisters

The museum, opened in 1938, is dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe and is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Its initial collection was collected by the American sculptor George Gray Barnard (1863-1938) and today the museum has about 2,000 European works of art, mostly dating from the period between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, including valuable illuminated manuscripts, sculptures, statues, paintings, stained glass, metal objects, ivories and tapestries. Among his masterpieces are a book of liturgy of the Hours of the early fifteenth century, The Belles Heures by Jean de France, Duc de Berry, a richly carved ivory cross of the twelfth century attributed by some to the English abbey of Bury Saint Edmunds, stained glass windows of the chapel of the castle of Hebrewhsdorf in Austria, a stone virgin of the mid-thirteenth century from the choir of the cathedral of Strasbourg in France and the Triptych Merode representing the Annunciation from the workshop of the Dutch master of the fifteenth century Robert Campin.
The Cloisters is located in Fort Tryon Park in the northern part of Manhattan overlooking the river Hudson, was designed in the Gothic style by architect Charles Collens (1873-1956) who together with Henry C. Pelton designed the Riverside Church. It takes its name from five medieval cloisters, Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Bonnefont-en-Comminges, Trie-en-Bigorre, Froville, which have been incorporated into the design of the building and serve as points of connection between the various galleries. The structure also includes three medieval chapels, in particular the 12th century Spanish Fuentiduena chapel.

References

Kenneth T. Jackson, Lisa Keller, Nancy Flood. The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition. Yale University Press, 2010. p. 272
Francis Morrone. The Architectural Guidebook to New York City . Gibbs Smith, 2002. pp. 354-356
The Met Cloisters (Cooper Hewitt Museum)
The Cloisters (Wikipedia)
The Cloisters (Encyclopædia Britannica)

Useful links

The Cloisters Museum and Gardens (Google Arts & Culture)