Glories Of The Met

There are many outstanding examples of ancient art in the Met’s collections. We take a look at a few highlights – both from the exhibition Making the Met and elsewhere in the museum – that open a window on to the institution’s past.

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This exquisite carving of an eagle eating a cactus fruit (symbolising the sun consuming a human heart) is one of a pair of reliefs acquired by the Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church in Mexico in the winter of 1892-1893. Church gave both reliefs to the Met in 1893 to improve what he described as its ‘meagre collection’ of ancient American art. He presented them as Aztec works, which he said had been unearthed by a plough near Tampico, on Mexico’s east coast, but they are in fact early Toltec reliefs, dating from the 10th-13th century AD. Church, an early trustee of the museum, was a keen advocate of the presentation of Pre-Columbian art in the galleries and supported acquisitions in this area.