The Cloisters Museum

May 10, 2012 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

Today was probably the worst day in sightseeing history.

Destination: The Cloisters Museum. A branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which offers an extensive medieval collection of statues, paintings, stained glass windows, tapestries and architecture.

We left right after Fussie's first nap because I knew it was going to be a long day so I didn't want to wait until both girls were up again from their afternoon nap (and I was hoping they both might just fall asleep in their stroller at some point.)

It was raining a little when we left but most days when it rains it doesn't last long. We had to travel up to the top of Manhattan about 50 minutes away so I packed my rain jacket and their rain cover figuring it would be over once we got there.

I planned out my trip and found a wheelchair accessible station around the area. But when I was reading on the Cloisters' website they recommended regular visitors get off at a closer station and exit by the elevator.

So I thought, hmm there's an elevator, that must mean that it is wheel chair accessible even though it isn't listed on the subway map. I would love to not have to walk as far so I planned to check it out.

I even asked a police officer on the subway if there really was an elevator at that station and he said yes but after that I would have to go up another level to get out but that there was a ramp. So I thought, easy, I'll do it and save myself the extra effort of walking further.

Boy was I wrong.

Yes, there was an elevator. And there was a ramp. But it was the steepest, longest ramp with a switchback I have used yet. And once it takes you outside the station there was flight of stairs cut out of a rock wall you had to climb to get up to the street.

The subway map was right. Definitely not wheel chair accessible.

And the rain had not stopped. Now it was dumping!

So I got Aaralyn out of the stroller while she was crying about getting wet and made her climb up the rock stairs while I carried Olivia in one arm and half of the stroller in the other.

Luckily, a poor old man took pitty on us and offered to help me carry the stroller up the stairs instead of me trying to drag it up behind me. New Yorkers are always so nice and helpful.

It was such an adventure to just get up onto the street but I still had a 20 minute walk in the pouring rain to get to the Cloisters.
The history of the museum is so interesting to me.

John D Rockefeller Jr was a great philanthropist of the time who was the son of the richest man in the world. He worried about the effect that his father's money would have on him and his children and grandchildren so he spent his life trying to give it away. And only spent money on things that he felt would be for the public good.

Rockefeller's interest in the arts came from his wife's own love of it. He especially loved the religious theme and amazing craftsmanship of medieval art.

In the 1920's Rockefeller obtained many pieces of medieval art and tapestries from Europe and donated them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When some building fragments from a few french abbeys came up for sale he bought them for the collection as well.

Rockefeller didn't feel that the urban location of the Met was suitable for his collection so he donated a 56 acre wooded park overlooking the Hudson on the top of Manhattan to New York City to be used for a public park if they agreed to set aside 4 acres of it for his museum of medieval art.

Obviously they agreed.



The whole trail up to the museum was lined with this stone wall just enhancing the effect.


Finally, we caught a glimpse and it was magnificent.

Rockefeller wanted it to seem like you were coming to a real monastery. It is constructed out of sections from 5 French medieval monasteries and blended with architectural elements from the time.

The museum is surrounded by gardens planted according to horticultural documentation from medieval manuscripts and artifacts.

It was so cool to know that all these same plants were the ones used hundreds of years ago for their medicinal, culinary, magical or household applications at the time.


I love how they incorporated this medieval archway into modern stone walls. Everything was like that and it just made it so much more realistic.


It was just like being transported back in time.

From the Benedictine monestary of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa. Northeast Pyrenees, founded 878 AD

The museum incorporates 5 French cloistered abbeys. A cloister is the covered walkway surrounding a large open courtyard which gives access to all other buildings in the monastery. It is where a lot of the processional activities takes places as well as a quiet area providing an atmosphere for study and meditation.

Cuxa Cloister

The original Cuxa cloister was double this size but it had been disassembled after the French Revolution when the monks had left. 

Pontaut Chapter House from southwest France, 12th century.

The Abbot would call the community to the Chapter House which was usually located off the cloister when there was important business to discuss.

Incredible.

At first I had a hard time with the thought of all these priceless pieces being disassembled brick by brick and sold to the highest bidder. A lot of these cloisters were first in the possession of George Grey Bernard, an american sculptor who used them in his personal gardens.

We are so lucky that John D Rockefeller Jr felt moved to buy them and make them available to the public. But I still felt it was wrong for us to have some of France's priceless artifacts.

I had imagined that Americans just went over to Europe taking anything that looked interesting but I learned that this building was actually being used as a stable so they weren't throwing the monks out of their homes and stealing them. They saved them and preserved them for the rest of us.

Virgin and Child. Limestone with original paint, glass and gilding. France. 1340-50.

Christ is Born as Man's Redeemer. Early 16th Century Flemish tapestry.

 In the Middle Ages tapestries were just as valuable maybe even more so than sculptures, paintings or other works of art. This tapestry does such a good job of separating the different scenes by various indoor or outdoor barriers so you can clearly see the different events.

This is one of the best preserved Gothic tapestries in existence even though during the French Revolution it was used to keep potatoes in a cellar from freezing. At some point in history this tapestry was cut into 4 pieces so curators at the Met had to figure out how to put it back together while maintaining the integrity of the original. Look at the top left corner. You will see a white and black bird between two scenes. The original was so frayed that they restorers had to weave an entirely new one.

Three Kings from an Adoration Group. Swabia, Germany before 1489

Together with a seated Virgin and Child, these 3 Kings formed the central shrine of a large altarpiece in a convent in Germany. The thin figures with broad drapery patters represent the Late Gothic sculpture of Swabia. They are wooden sculptures but made to look like metal.

Palmesel, 15th Century

Wooden, painted statues of Christ on a donkey were pulled throughout the streets of Germany during the Palm Sunday processions reenacting Christ's entry into Jerusalem.

Metalwork-Alloy Aquamaniles. Germany 1200-1500AD

Aquamaniles water vessels in the form of an animal or human figure. They were usually used for the washing of hands over a basin, which was part of both upper-class meals and the Christian Eucharist. 

Female Reliquary Busts. Brussels and South Netherlands Early 16th Century

The Nine Heroes Tapestries. South Netherlands. 1385.

The Nine Heroes Tapestries, representing Hebrew heroes: Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus. Christian heroes: Charlemagne, King Arthur (in middle), and Godfrey of Boullion. Pagan heroes: Hector, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar.

This archway was found in a field in Italy.



This cloister is from the upper gallery of the 2-story Benedictine abbey of Saint Guilhem le Desert cloister in southern France, dated to 1206. The damage was so severe to this monastery that the stone mason who bought these columns had no idea what the original dimensions or sequence of the columns were.

Look at the dark patterns made by drill holes on the columns’ capitals that embellish the foliage and almost make it look lacy. They were probably inspired by the remains of Roman sculptures that would’ve been available in France at the time and give a clean, sophisticated look against the cream limestone. Love it.

Can you imagine that they were being used as grape arbors before they were bought and brought over here?

Gothic Chapel and Tomb effigy of Jean d'Alluye. France, 1248

 Jean d'Alluye was a knight of Philip Augustus. His career included a trip to the Holy Land, where he acquired a relic of the True Cross.  This effigy, in an attitude of prayer, was turned upside down and used as a bridge over a nearby stream until George Grey Bernard bought it in 1900.

Saint Germain and a donor. Burgundy, 15th century

 This painted limestone bishop, comes from Auxerre, France where my husband's family is believed to be from.

So now it came time to go to the lower level. The staff had kept talking about me needing to go down there.

So I went to go ask.

An older gentleman who I could barely understand walked me over to the elevator. An elevator barley wide enough to fit a wheelchair through... so I hauled the girls out, heldOlivia in one arm while I tried to fold the stroller and wedge it through with the other. All the while the guy was saying "oh I don't know if this is going fit." I didn't care I was going to make it fit.

Then we came to a wooden door that opened into the Cloisters' Treasury. This held the really cool artifacts.

Illuminated Manuscript Bible. France, 1465

Chapter from book of Revelations. Some of the detailing is so fine that it would've been painted with a 1 bristle brush.


Can you imagine how many hours it would've taken a monk to paint this?

Noblewoman's Prayer Book. Look at that gold leafing!

Only Surviving Complete Deck of Medieval Playing Cards. South Netherlands, 1475

I made it about 1/4 of the way through when the girls just lost it. Olivia was shrieking at the top of her lungs and Aaralyn was crying about wanting to go home and go to bed. So I decided to cut my losses and leave. I  walked over to the staff guy and asked him to help me back up the elevator. As we turned to leave Olivia fell asleep. So 2 minutes later I had to wake her back up while taking her out of the stroller and up the cramped elevator.

We got to the top and the girls were somewhat subdued so I ran over to a room that I had missed earlier. There was a tour group in there when I was going through before and the girls were playing around and making noise so I didn't stay. But this is the Cloisters most famous room.

The Unicorn Room holds seven individual hangings, known as "The Unicorn Tapestries,"  which are considered to be among the most beautiful and complex works of art from the late Middle Ages that survive. Luxuriously woven in fine wool and silk with silver and gilded threads, the tapestries vividly depict scenes associated with a hunt for the elusive, magical unicorn.

The Unicorn in Captivity 1495-1505

Because the unicorn is white and pure it is usually linked with Christ. However, this tapestry seems to represent the beloved tamed. He is tethered loosely to a tree and constrained by a fence,but the fence is low enough to leap over: The unicorn could escape if he wanted. Clearly, however, his confinement is a happy one, to which the pomegranates in the tree (a medieval symbol of fertility and marriage) testify. Many of the other plants represented here, such as wild orchid, bistort, and thistle, echo this theme of marriage and procreation. (From the Met)

Or if this tapestry is part of the other tapestries in the hunting sequence, it could be placed at the end and represent the Resurrected Christ.

The Hunters Enter the Woods, 1495-1505

Of the 101 species of plants represented, 85 have been identified. The "AE" woven into each of the Unicorn Tapestries is probably the initials of their original owners.

The Unicorn is Found

The Unicorn is Attacked

This tapestry suggests the hunt was a royal pastime because it was typical to use hounds to scout, chase, and eventually attack the quarry in medieval stag hunts, and the palatial buildings in the background reinforce the idea.

The Unicorn Defends Itself

The mastery of the weavers is evident in the convincing representation of different materials and textures in the costumes, such as brocade, velvet, leather, and fur.

The horn-blowing hunter at the lower left wears a scabbard with the inscription AVE REGINA C (Hail, Queen of the Heavens) thought to represent the Archangel Gabriel, who announced to the Virgin Mary that she is to give birth to the Christ Child. 

The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle

Two narratives are brought illustrated in this hanging.

The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle

Some say the doomed unicorn is an allegory for Christ dying on the Cross; the holly tree (often a symbol of the Passion) rises behind his head. A hunter is catching the unicorn's blood in his horn which could represent the Holy Grail.

The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle

In the other, at right, a lord and a lady (perhaps symbolizing Mary and John the Beloved) receive the body. The unicorn's horn is already cut off but still entangled in a thorny oak branch like the Crown of Thorns.

I am so glad I didn't skip this room. I had learned about these tapestries in my European Art History class in college so it was so incredible to see them in person. It was the perfect note to end on. I would love to come back here sans children one day.

Of course it really didn't end there. I had to trek back to the station with both girls yelling, haul them down the staircase with the help of another old man, brave the 50min subway ride and the accompanying looks from fellow passengers wondering why my kids were crying so hard.

Finally we made it back home and the girls fell right asleep and stayed that way for 4 hours.