Celebrating the Feast of San Nicola at the Met

Saint Nicholas with the Three Boys in the
Pickling Tub, oak, South Netherlandish, ca. 1500

Friday after Mass, we celebrated the feast of San Nicola di Bari with a delightful trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. With no real agenda planned, we sauntered through the Medieval Treasury, the American Wing, and the 19th-century British Art galleries. Too much to show here, we offer a tiny glimpse of the many treasures we viewed during our visit. San Nicola, ora pro nobis.

Upcoming exhibits of note at the Met Fifth Avenue:

• Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature (February 8—May 11, 2025)

• Sargent and Paris (April 27—August 3, 2025)

The entombment, limestone, French, Bourbonnais,
ca. 1515, from the Château de Biron, Périgord

(L) Saint George and the Dragon, ca. 1475, wood, gilded, and painted, attributed to Hans Klocker (Austrian, active, 1474-1502). (R) Saint Elzéar, alabaster, carved about 1370-73, French, from the Franciscan church at Apt. The work is one of eight sculptural reliefs depicting the saintly life of the knight from the reliquary tomb (erected in 1373) destroyed during the French Revolution.

King, Queen, and Prince, marble with traces of paint and gilding, carved
and painted about 1350, French. The figures are believed to portray King
Philip VI Valois (d. 1350); his second wife, Blanche of Navarre (d. 1398);
and one of their sons, John the Good or Philip of France.

(L) Saint Anne Holding the Virgin and Child, Walnut with paint and gilding, carved and painted about 1500-1525, from the Benedictine convent of Nonnberg, Salzburg, Austria. (R) Saint Catherine of Alexandria, gold, enamel en ronde bosse, sapphires, corundum, and pearls, made in Paris about 1400-1410

Saddle with Courtly Scenes, bone, linden wood, rawhide, and birch bark,
made in central Europe (probably Tyrol) about 1430-60

(L-R) Rosary Terminal Bead with Lovers and Death's Head, elephant
ivory with emerald pendant, gilded metal mount, North French
or South Netherlandish, made about 1500-1525

Drinking Horn, cow or European bison horn, silver and gilded silver
mounts, and champlevé enamel, German, Nuremberg, made 1436

(L) Drinking Horn (see above). (R) The Spanish Girl in Reverie,
oil on canvas, 1831, Washington Allston (1779-1843)

Ariadne, oil on canvas, ca. 1831-35, Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886)

(L) Madame X (Virginie Avegno Gautreau), oil on canvas, 1883-84,
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). (R) Carmencita (Carmen Dauset
Moreno), oil on canvas, 1890, William Merritt Chase (1849-1916)

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, oil on canvas, 1836, Thomas Cole (1801-1848)

(L-R) Fragilina, marble, 1923, Attilio Piccirilli (1866-1945)

(L) Evening, marble, this carving 1891, Frederick Wellington
Ruckstull (1853-1942). (R) Genius of Mirth, marble,
carved 1843, Thomas Crawford (1813[?]-1857)

(L) Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852), marble, 1823, Sir Francis Chantrey (British, 1781-1841). (R) King George IV, when Prince of Wales (1762-1830), oil on canvas, after 1798, Sir William Beechey (British, 1753-1839)

(L-R) Alexander the Great, black basalt (unglazed stoneware), ca. 1779-80, Wedgwood and Bently (British, 1769-80); and Laurence Sterne (1713-1823), marble, modeled 1766, Joseph Nolleken (British, 1737-1823)