The zun or yi, used until the Northern Song (960–1126) is a type of Chinese ritual bronze or ceramic wine vessel with a round or square vase-like form, sometimes in the shape of an animal, first appearing in the Shang dynasty. Used in religious ceremonies to hold wine, the zun has a wide lip to facilitate pouring. Vessels have been found in the shape of a dragon, an ox, a goose, and more. One notable zun is the He zun from the Western Zhou.
Ashur-nasir-pal II was the third king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 883 to 859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II. His son and successor was Shalmaneser III and his queen was Mullissu-mukannišat-Ninua.
Grisaille means in general any European painting that is painted in grey.
Samson and Delilah is a painting long attributed to the Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) in the National Gallery, London. It dates from about 1609 to 1610.
The Cloisters Cross, is a complex 12th-century ivory Romanesque altar cross or processional cross. It is named after The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which acquired it in 1963.
The Allegory of Faith, also known as Allegory of the Catholic Faith, is a Dutch Golden Age painting by Johannes Vermeer from about 1670–1672. It has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1931.
A coconut cup is a showy form of cup typically intended for both use and display. The majority were produced and used in Western Europe in the late Middle Ages, especially during the Renaissance with something of a revival in Georgian Britain. They used a coconut shell as the bowl of the cup, and were mounted, typically in silver or silver-gilt, as a standing cup with a stem and foot, and usually a cover, which often included part of the shell. These metal parts were often very elaborately decorated, and the shell carved in relief.
The Procuress is a 1656 oil-on-canvas painting by the then 24-year-old Johannes Vermeer. It can be seen in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It is his first genre painting and shows a scene of contemporary life, an image of mercenary love perhaps in a brothel. It differs from his earlier biblical and mythological scenes. It is one of only three paintings Vermeer signed and dated. In 1696 the painting, being sold on an auction in Amsterdam, was named "A merry company in a room".
The auricular style or lobate style is a style of ornamental decoration, mainly found in Northern Europe in the first half of the 17th century, bridging Northern Mannerism and the Baroque. The style was especially important and effective in silversmithing, but was also used in minor architectural ornamentation such as door and window reveals, picture frames, and a wide variety of the decorative arts. It uses softly flowing abstract shapes in relief, sometimes asymmetrical, whose resemblance to the side view of the human ear gives it its name, or at least its "undulating, slithery and boneless forms occasionally carry a suggestion of the inside of an ear or a conch shell". It is often associated with stylized marine animal forms, or ambiguous masks and shapes that might be such, which seem to emerge from the rippling, fluid background, as if the silver remained in its molten state.
Adam van Vianen was a leading silversmith of the early Dutch Golden Age, who trained as an engraver and was also a medallist. Unlike his brother Paul van Vianen, he spent little time away from his native Utrecht. Together they developed the auricular style which bridges the gap between Northern Mannerist and Baroque ornament.
Adoration of the Magi is an oil on panel painting from the early 1520s by the Dutch Renaissance artist Jan Mostaert in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where in 2020 it was on display in room 0.1. The panel measures 51 cm × 36.5 cm, and the painted surface a little less at 48.5 cm × 34 cm. It is often called the Mostaert Amsterdam Adoration in art history, to distinguish it from the multitude of other paintings of the Adoration of the Magi.
Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian-themed wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Low Countries, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. They consist of highly intricate layers of reliefs, often rendered to nearly microscopic level, and are made from boxwood, which has a fine grain and high density suitable for detailed micro-carving. There are around 150 surviving examples; most are spherical rosary beads, statuettes, skulls, or coffins; some 20 are in the form of polyptychs, including triptych and diptych altarpieces, tabernacles and monstrances. The polyptychs are typically 10–13 cm (3.9–5.1 in) in height. Most of the beads are 10–15 cm (3.9–5.9 in) in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand, hung from necklaces or belts, or worn as fashionable accessories.
Prayer nuts or Prayer beads are very small 16th century Gothic boxwood miniature sculptures, mostly originating from the north of today's Holland. They are typically detachable and open into halves of highly detailed and intricate Christian religious scenes. Their size varies between the size of a walnut and a golf ball. They are mostly the same shape, decorated with carved openwork Gothic tracery and flower heads. Most are 2–5 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand during personal devotion or hung from necklaces or belts as fashionable accessories.
Miniature Altarpiece with the Crucifixion is a very small and complex early 16th century Netherlandish microcarved miniature sculpture in boxwood, now in The Cloisters, New York. The central carvings of the upper triptych show the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus; each outer wing contains two scenes from the biblical Old Testament. The complex base contains a round carving which opens like a boxwood prayer nut.
TheMemorial Guild Cupby Adam van Vianen is a 1614 silver-gilt covered ewer in the Rijksmuseum, commissioned by the Amsterdam goldsmiths' guild to commemorate the death of Adam's brother Paulus van Vianen. It is an iconic symbol of the auricular style developed by the two brothers.
Isaac Blessing Jacob is a 1642 religious painting by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. It shows Jacob kneeling at the bed of his blind father Isaac under the watchful eye of his mother Rebecca as he receives his brother Esau's blessing. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a number of blue faience vases and chalices from Ancient Egypt in its collection. The vessels, which range in condition from full works to fragments, are dated to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art possesses a collection of items used for the celebration of the Eucharist. The ensemble, which includes a paten, a chalice, and a straw, is currently on display at The Cloisters.
The miniature altarpiece in the British Museum, London, is a very small portable Gothic boxwood miniature sculpture completed in 1511 by the Northern Netherlands master sometimes identified as Adam Dircksz, and members of his workshop. At 25.1 cm (9.9 in) high, it is built from a series of architectural layers or registers, which culminate at an upper triptych, whose centre panel contains a minutely detailed and intricate Crucifixion scene filled with multitudes of figures in relief. Its outer wings show Christ Carrying the Cross on the left, and the Resurrection on the right.
The Adoration of the Magi altarpiece is a small Gothic boxwood miniature, made in the Netherlands c. 1500–1530, attributed to the workshop of Adam Dircksz. Such rarefied and highly ornate objects were intended for private devotion, and took, by modern art historian estimates, decades to complete, periods equivalent to the entire career of a medieval master carver. Just around 150 of these sculptures from the late 15th and early 16th centuries remain today, and the elite echelons of collectors in the 19th century placed a high value on them despite the fact that it is unknown how many of them were manufactured.
