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NYC – Metropolitan Museum of Art – Female Dancer

Image by wallyg
Female Dancer
Western Han dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 9), 2nd century B.C.
China
Earthenware with slip and pigments H. 21 in. (53.3 cm)

When portion of a larger retinue, this sophisticated dancer is extraordinarily compelling in her capacity to convey a feeling of life in a completely motionless kind. The sculptor chose the moment in the efficiency when one sleeve is thrown back as the dancer gently stoops and flexes her knees, lifting one particular heel from the floor she is motionless for a split second before she advances on her toes, her pendant arm remaining supremely nonetheless. The desire for an afterlife by way of which worldly pleasures and activities are maintained is reflected in the putting of models (recognized as spirit goods, or &quotmingqi&quot) of attendants, entertainers, pets, domestic animals, and a host of worldly goods in Chinese tombs, specifically throughout the very first millennium. Tomb furnishings reflected the wealth, status, and interests of the deceased, even though equipping tombs with such things was usually understood as an act of homage by the deceased’s family and descendants. Even though specific spirit goods have been produced of bronze, jade, and other components, clay was most frequently used.

Charlotte C. and John C. Weber Collection, Gift of Charlotte C. and John C. Weber, 1992 (1992.165.19)

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s permanent collection consists of far more than two million works of art from around the world. It opened its doors on February 20, 1872, housed in a creating situated at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City. Beneath their guidance of John Taylor Johnston and George Palmer Putnam, the Met’s holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mainly European paintings, swiftly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met’s buy of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Douglas Mansion on West 14th Street. Nonetheless, these new accommodations had been temporary after negotiations with the city of New York, the Met acquired land on the east side of Central Park, where it built its permanent home, a red-brick Gothic Revival stone &quotmausoleum&quot developed by American architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold. As of 2006, the Met measures almost a quarter mile lengthy and occupies a lot more than two million square feet, a lot more than 20 occasions the size of the original 1880 building.

In 2007, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was ranked #17 on the AIA 150 America’s Preferred Architecture list.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967. The interior was designated in 1977.

National Historic Register #86003556