From its architecture to its massive art collection, The Met has a little bit of everything and one is sure to find something that captures his or her interest. Considering that The Met is the United States’ largest art museum, it is easy to get lost within its many corridors and wings. As a famous tourist site, there are a lot of visitors to the museum. However, the museum is commodious enough to hold a large number of visitors exploring artworks there. It was astounding how by switching between different parts of the museum could lead to completely different auras and cultures. The experience felt like a journey to the world and a travel in time. It broadened my horizon and taught me not to limit myself to only one possibility as in one single museum exist civilizations from around the world and even from decades ago. Overall, my experience in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is enriching and memorable.
Saints and Scenes from the Life of the Virgin
These well-preserved panels are the wings of a portable triptych, the center panel of which is still unidentified. The anonymous master worked outside Siena itself, but his scenes are based on those of Duccio’s famous altarpiece in the cathedral of the city. The left wing depicts three principal scenes from the life of the Virgin (her so-called “joys”) while on the right wing is her coronation in heaven. The six saints—three males and three females—would have been chosen by the person for whom the triptych was painted.
Merry Company on a Terrace
Another of Steen’s self-deprecating depictions of his own unruly household, this painting centers on the inviting figure of his wife, who looks out at the viewer with an empty wine glass in her hand. Steen, his face flushed with drink and a comic hat on his head, sits at the far left; next to him, with a sausage in his cap, is Hans Worst, the same theatrical figure depicted by Hals in a nearby work. To this day in the Netherlands, “a household by Jan Steen” remains proverbial for disorder and domestic chaos.
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