The Angel Tree: Celebrating Christmas at The Met

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/sandamichaela-1617205-angel-tree/

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (colloquially The Met), located in New York City, is the largest art museum in the United States with among the most significant art collections. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries

The MetThe Met

Christmas Tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche has been displayed each year since 1957 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from late November to early January. The annual candlelit spruce tree, adorned with angels and surrounded by a lively 18th-century Neapolitan Nativity scene, is a tradition inaugurated by collector and museum patron Loretta Hines Howard

Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque Crèche have been displayed each year since 1957 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from late November to early January. The annual candlelit spruce tree adorned with angels and surrounded by a lively 18th-century Neapolitan Nativity scene, is a tradition inaugurated by collector and museum patron Loretta Hines Howard

18th–19th century

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18th century (14.3 x 19.1 x 18.1 cm) Attributed to Giuseppe Sammartino (1720–1793)

Detail of the Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Loretta Hines Howard, 1964

The Museum continues a longstanding holiday tradition with the presentation of its Christmas tree, a favorite of New Yorkers and visitors from around the world. A vivid eighteenth-century Neapolitan Nativity scene—embellished with a profuse array of diminutive, lifelike attendant figures and silk-robed angels hovering above—adorns the candlelit spruce. Recorded music and lighting ceremonies add to the enjoyment of the holiday display.

The late Mrs. Howard began collecting crèche figures in 1925 and soon after conceived the idea of combining the Roman Catholic custom of elaborate Nativity scenes with the tradition of decorated Christmas trees that had developed among the largely Protestant people of northern Europe. Mrs. Howard donated more than two hundred crèche figures to the museum in 1964 to form the nucleus of this ever-expanding display.

18th century H. 41.6 cm

18th–19th century H. 41.9 cm18th–19th century H. 45.1 cm

Second half 18th century H. 41.3 cm Nicola Ingaldi (active late 18th–early 19th century

Attributed to Giuseppe Sammartino (1720–1793)

Attributed to Salvatore di Franco (active 18th century) Holy Ghost in Rays second half 18th century

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Nicola Ingaldi (active late 18th–early 19th century)

18th–19th century H. 11.4 cm late 18th–early 19th century H 38.7 cm

The museum will be open on both Christmas Eve (December 24) and New Year's Eve (December 31) with lighting ceremonies at 4:30 p.m.

Attributed to Giuseppe Sammartino (1720–1793)

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second half 18th century

second half 18th century second half 18th century

This wrought-iron screen, or reja, was once installed in the central nave of the Cathedral of Valladolid in Spain. The Cathedral was completed in 1668, but the choir screen, the private gift of Isidro Cosío y Bustamante, Bishop of Valladolid, was not put into place until December 7, 1763. Screens of the kind were used to close the choir to the public. When the choir at Valladolid was relocated near the main altar in the 1920s, the screen was no longer needed.

Vargueño (Drop-Front Desk on Chest). Spanish, Gilded, carved and partly gilded, painted bone; wrought iron (Total H.:160 cm) Gift of the Duchesse de Richelieu, 1960

Vargueño Gift of the Duchesse de Richelieu, 1960

Coffer lock and key

Neapolitan School - Figures, from the Christmas Crèche (terracotta & cloth)

Neapolitan School - Figures, from the Christmas Crèche (terracotta & cloth)

Sound: Tu scendi dalle stelle (Canti Popolari , Claudio Villa, Andrea Bocelli)

Text and pictures: Internet

Copyright: All the images belong to their authors

Presentation: Sanda Foişoreanuwww.slideshare.net/michaelasanda