"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the oldest artifact at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Among the oldest items at the Met, a set of Archeulian flints from Deir el-Bahri which date from the Lower Paleolithic period (between 300,000 and 75,000 BCE), are part of the Egyptian collection."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is Jadanagam?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"This type of plait ornament, typically worn by brides and dancers, is called a jadanagam (hair serpent) for the grouping of snakes that may once have been attached to its topmost disk. This disk and the crescent shape below represent the sun and the moon."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the most expensive museum item in the world?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The Mona Lisa

It's the most iconic work of art in the world, and it's the most expensive. In 1962, the Mona Lisa was assessed by insurers at $100,000,000. In today's prices, that's around $860,000,000."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How much is the Mona Lisa worth?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"So, how much is the Mona Lisa worth? While the price tag associated with it is hard to calculate, considering it is deemed priceless; the estimated cost for the Mona Lisa price is approximately $860 Million."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What to not miss at the Met?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"
Best Things to See at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
More items...
Aug 6, 2024
"}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is better, MoMA or met?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The Met has a wide focus, featuring everything from the art of the ancient world to contemporary photography (although the bulk of their contemporary collections can be found at the Met Breuer). The MoMA specializes in modern and contemporary art."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Is Starry Night at the Met?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The Starry Night's home is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Who owns the Met?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Located in Central Park, the Met's two-million-square-foot main building is owned by the city of New York, while the collections are held for the benefit of the public by the corporation's trustees."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Which museum has the most stolen artifacts?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The British Museum, which houses more than 8 million artifacts like the Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon Marbles, possesses the most number of stolen goods, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson argued."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does the Met have Egyptian artifacts?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the Indian forehead jewelry called?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Ethnic Significance: \"Maang Tika\" is the Indian name for this traditional forehead hair headpiece ornament jewelry. Indian bridal women wear this to ward off evil and bad luck. Traditionally it is worn in the middle parting (maang)."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is head jewelry called?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Tiaras, barrettes, combs, and ferronnières are some of the jewelry items with which one might adorn one's tresses or temples."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the Indian headpiece called?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"One of the most recognizable symbols of Native American Indian culture is the traditional Indian headdress, also known as a feathered war bonnet."}}]}}

Three Jewels from South Asia - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2024)

Three Jewels from South Asia - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1)
Left: Plait ornament (jadanagam), 18th–19th century. India, probably Madras. Islamic. Gold; inset with rock crystal, rubies, emeralds, and amethysts; L. 23 3/4 in. (60 cm), Max. W. 3 1/4 in. (8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1919 (19.111.4). Right: Lady Dressing Her Hair, late 18th century. India. Islamic. Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper; 6.87 x 3.94 in. (17.5 x 10 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Richard Ettinghausen (1975.192.5)

«

"O your hair," he said,
"it's like rainclouds
moving between branches of lightning.
It parts five ways
between gold ornaments
braided with a length of flowers
and the fragrant screwpine . . ."

So wrote the Tamil poet Kapilar, nearly two thousand years ago, of the beauty of a woman's braid adorned with jewels and sweet flowers. In the Department of Islamic Art, there is one such gold ornament, a jadanagam from eighteenth- or nineteenth-century South India on view in gallery 463, that never fails to bring me to a thrilled standstill as it shimmers under the light. Intended to adorn a woman's plait, or braid, the jadanagam features a large disc at the top that the wearer would secure to the back of her head with black cord, and a crimson silk tassel at its base to mark the end of the braid. The name alone suggests a graceful sinuousness: in Tamil, jadai refers to the braid and nagam means "snake." Combined with garlands of fragrant jasmine, the jadanagam—as Kapilar's poem suggests—would have made for a heady, mesmerizing effect.»

Such pieces are sometimes made in the shape of an actual snake or a garland of flowers, but the jadanagam in the Met's collection comprises a series of exquisitely jeweled gold discs that taper in size down the length of the plait. At the top is a large, slightly convex disc flanked by a crescent, which together represent the sun and the moon, popular motifs in the traditional jewelry of South India. The delicate droplet shape at the very base of the jadanagam suggests a leaf from the pipal tree sacred to Hindus.

To produce the shimmering, gem-laden effect of the jadanagam, craftsmen employed a technique called kundan. In this method, gold or silver was drawn into wire, then beaten into flat strips. From there, these foils were folded into ribbons and compressed to form a solid wedge around the gemstone that would hold the stone in place. In some cases, the reverse side was covered in engraved designs.

Three Jewels from South Asia - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2)
Necklace (front at left, reverse at right), 18th century. India, probably Jaipur. Gold, colored stones, enamel, silk; Ornament: H. 7 7/8 in. (20 cm), W. 6 in. (15 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1919 (19.111.3)

In other examples, such as the necklace above, the kundan was paired with enamel designs on the reverse. In minakari (an Indian term for this type of enameling), which came into prominence during the Mughal period, enamel was used to embellish the back of jewelry in colorful patterns or flower motifs. Likely created in northern India during the eighteenth century, this piece features an abstract floral design composed of stones set in gold. The reverse shows a pattern of a red flowers over a white enamel field; this side would have rested against the wearer's skin or clothing—invisible while worn, a private pleasure perhaps intended foremost for the wearer's eyes.

Around the corner from the jadanagam in the gallery is another piece of striking kundan jewelry. Likely also produced in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Northern India, this piece would have been originally created as a bazuband. Bazubands, or arm bands,were worn by both men and women in India and Iran, as is visible in the drawing at the top of this post. In the early twentieth century, this particular bazuband was transformed into a brooch by the French jewelry house Cartier: the line of pearls and pair of onyx beads encircling the central pendant and the small diamonds set in platinum would then have been added, in addition to the pin fastening at the rear (in lieu of the chain or cord, which would have originally functioned to secure the bazuband around an arm).

Three Jewels from South Asia - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (3)
Centerpiece from an armlet (bazuband) later made into a brooch (front at top, reverse at bottom), 18th–19th century. Northern India. Islamic. Gold, inset with rubies, emeralds, and colorless sapphires; with later pearls, diamonds, onyx; L. 3 3/4 in., W. 2 in. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of George Blumenthal, 1941 (41.100.118)

In the early twentieth century, European jewelry houses exhibited a greater interest in the Indian gems and motifs, while Indian royals became increasingly interested in Western styles. European and American firms drew upon Indian designs for the Western markets, creating and resetting pieces for Indian rulers. Chief among these producers was Cartier, which sought to adapt traditional Indian motifs into a Western design idiom. This particular bazuband/brooch eventually ended up in the collection of George Blumenthal, a German-born banker who served as the seventh president of the Met, who bequeathed it to the Museum as part of a much larger art collection upon his death, in 1941.

The necklace and jadanagam above, meanwhile, came from the collection of Lockwood de Forest, a painter and collector of Indian objects. De Forest, who was deeply interested in traditional Indian arts and crafts, often employed local craftsmen in the subcontinent to produce goods for export to the United States. He maintained several showrooms in New York in addition to working as an independent interior designer. The Museum obtained quite a few pieces from him, and acquiring these two objects in 1919.

One of the great pleasures of viewing any gallery is the surprising—or simply delightful—juxtapositions of objects that often have had very different lives. The sheer size of the permanent collection at the Met allows for many particularly wondrous arrangements and pairings, so I invite you to take a stroll through the galleries to discover what might captivate or startle your eye.

References
Bala Krishnan, Usha R., and Meera Sushil Kumar. Indian Jewellery: Dance of the Peacock. Bombay: India Book House Limited, 2001.

Bala Krishnan, Usha R. Jewels of the Nizams. New Delhi: Department of Culture, Government of India, 2001.

Taylor, Francis Henry. "In Memoriam: George Blumenthal 1858–1941." In The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 36, no. 7 (1941): 145–147.

Jenkins, Marilyn, and Manuel Keene. Islamic Jewelry in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.

Mayer, Roberta A. "The Aesthetics of Lockwood de Forest: India, Craft, and Preservation." In Winterthur Portfolio 31, no. 6 (1996): 1–22.

Ramanujan, A. K., ed. Poems of Love and War: From the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Untracht, Oppi. Traditional Jewelry of India. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.

Young-Sánchez, Marguerite. Cartier in the 20th Century. New York: Denver Art Museum in Association with Vendome Press, 2014.

Related Link
Now at the Met: "In the Stars: Gems and the Indian Tradition" (December 17, 2014)

Three Jewels from South Asia - The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2024)

FAQs

What is the most valuable item in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired the last painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, a devotional panel of the Madonna and Child above a painted, inlaid parapet, considered a landmark in the history of devotional imagery–from the Stoclet family in Brussels, Belgium for around $45 million, making it the single most ...

What is the most famous painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

What is the oldest artifact at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

Among the oldest items at the Met, a set of Archeulian flints from Deir el-Bahri which date from the Lower Paleolithic period (between 300,000 and 75,000 BCE), are part of the Egyptian collection.

What is Jadanagam? ›

This type of plait ornament, typically worn by brides and dancers, is called a jadanagam (hair serpent) for the grouping of snakes that may once have been attached to its topmost disk. This disk and the crescent shape below represent the sun and the moon.

What is the most expensive museum item in the world? ›

The Mona Lisa

It's the most iconic work of art in the world, and it's the most expensive. In 1962, the Mona Lisa was assessed by insurers at $100,000,000. In today's prices, that's around $860,000,000.

How much is the Mona Lisa worth? ›

So, how much is the Mona Lisa worth? While the price tag associated with it is hard to calculate, considering it is deemed priceless; the estimated cost for the Mona Lisa price is approximately $860 Million.

What to not miss at the Met? ›

Best Things to See at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Self Portrait With a Straw Hat.
  • Washington Crossing the Delaware.
  • The Death of Socrates.
  • The Denial of Saint Peter.
  • The Dance Class & Little Dancer.
  • Rembrandt Self-Portrait.
  • Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.
  • Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies.
Aug 6, 2024

What is better, MoMA or met? ›

The Met has a wide focus, featuring everything from the art of the ancient world to contemporary photography (although the bulk of their contemporary collections can be found at the Met Breuer). The MoMA specializes in modern and contemporary art.

Is Starry Night at the Met? ›

The Starry Night's home is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Who owns the Met? ›

Located in Central Park, the Met's two-million-square-foot main building is owned by the city of New York, while the collections are held for the benefit of the public by the corporation's trustees.

Which museum has the most stolen artifacts? ›

The British Museum, which houses more than 8 million artifacts like the Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon Marbles, possesses the most number of stolen goods, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson argued.

Does the Met have Egyptian artifacts? ›

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE.

What is the Indian forehead jewelry called? ›

Ethnic Significance: "Maang Tika" is the Indian name for this traditional forehead hair headpiece ornament jewelry. Indian bridal women wear this to ward off evil and bad luck. Traditionally it is worn in the middle parting (maang).

What is head jewelry called? ›

Tiaras, barrettes, combs, and ferronnières are some of the jewelry items with which one might adorn one's tresses or temples.

What is the Indian headpiece called? ›

One of the most recognizable symbols of Native American Indian culture is the traditional Indian headdress, also known as a feathered war bonnet.

What is the most expensive thing in MoMA? ›

Edvard Munch's The Scream is set to go on view for six months in a leading New York Museum. The seminal work from 1895, which was sold earlier this year for a record $120 million to the Apollo Global Management founder Leon Black is to go on view at The Museum of Modern Art, starting on October 24.

What not to miss at the Met? ›

  • STOP 1. Figure: Seated Couple.
  • STOP 2. The Temple of Dendur.
  • STOP 3. Washington Crossing the Delaware.
  • STOP 4. Perseus with the Head of Medusa.
  • STOP 5. Let My People Go.
  • STOP 6. Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)
  • STOP 7. Damascus Room.
  • STOP 8. Marble column from the Temple of Artemis at Sardis.

What is special about Metropolitan Museum of Art? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online.

What is the Metropolitan Museum of Art worth? ›

As of 2021, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection has an estimated value of over $50 billion, including more than 2 million works of art from around the world spanning 5,000 years of human creativity.

References

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