Ancient art from Cyprus : the Cesnola collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the richest and most varied representation, outside Cyprus, of Cypriot antiquities. These works were purchased by the newly established Museum in the mid-1870s from General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a Civil War cavalry officer who had amassed the objects while serving as the American consul on Cyprus. The Cesnola Collection was the earliest acquisition of Mediterranean antiquities by the Museum and constituted its primary display of archaeological material. In 1879 Cesnola became the Museums first director, a position that he held until his death in 1904. This splendid catalogue is published on the occasion of the opening of the Museums four permanent galleries for ancient art from Cyprus. It is also the first scholarly publication since 1914 devoted to the Cesnola Collection (which totals approximately six thousand objects). The volume features some five hundred pieces from the collection, illustrated in superb new color photography. Dating from about 2500 B.C. to about A.D. 300, these works rank among the finest examples of Cypriot art from the prehistoric, Geometric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Among the objects are monumental sculpture weapons, tools, and domestic utensils vases, lamps, and ritual paraphernalia dedicatory figurines engraved sealstones and jewelry and luxury objects. They represent every major medium worked in antiquity—stone, copper-based metal, clay, faience, glass, gold and silver, ivory, and semiprecious stones. These pieces testify to the quintessentially Cypriot amalgam of indigenous traditions and elements assimilated from the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans who, one after the other, controlled the island. Special emphasis is placed on the Metropolitan Museums collection of Cypriot limestone sculpture, which includes impressive sarcophagi from Golgoi and Amathus and is the finest in the world. "The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the richest and most varied representation, outside Cyprus, of Cypriot antiquities. These works were purchased by the newly established Museum in the mid-1870s from General Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a Civil War cavalry officer who had amassed the objects while serving as the American consul on Cyprus.". "This catalogue is published on the occasion of the opening of the Museum's four permanent galleries for ancient art from Cyprus. It is also the first scholarly publication since 1914 devoted to the Cesnola Collection (which totals approximately six thousand objects). The volume features some five hundred pieces from the collection, illustrated in new color photography. Dating from about 2500 B.C. to about A.D. 300, these works rank among the finest examples of Cypriot art from the prehistoric, Geometric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Among the objects are monumental sculpture; weapons, tools, and domestic utensils; vases, lamps, and ritual paraphernalia; dedicatory figurines; engraved sealstones and jewelry; and luxury objects."--BOOK JACKET. A Metropolitan Museum of Art Publication The most important collection of Cypriot antiquities outside Cyprus is the Cesnola Collection at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, assembled by Luigi Palma di Cesnola, the first director of the museum. Cesnola was a Civil War veteran who went to Cyprus in 1866 and, in excavations there, sought to rival the finds of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy. Now, on the occasion of the redesign of the Metropolitan's Cypriot galleries, comes this gorgeously illustrated catalogue of some 500 objects, ranging from glass, stone sculpture, and terra-cotta figurines to lamps, pottery, and jewelry. The Cesnola Collection includes works that are among the finest examples of Cypriot art from the prehistoric, Archaic, Classical/Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The first scholarly catalogue since 1914 of a large selection from the Cesnola Collection, this volume will be an invaluable reference. 260 illustrations, 250 in full color, 5 line drawings, 8 1/2 x 11"