In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, budding discourse on what it meant to be “modern” prompted artists to develop work that felt both relevant and responsive to contemporary life. This richly illustrated edition of the Bulletin explores the visual, conceptual, and technical experimentations of European ceramicists as they attempted to define a global language of modernism in stark contrast to earlier appeals to historical styles. Authors Sarah E. Lawrence and Jeffrey Munger illuminate the broad range of technical and creative influences—including Asian ceramic traditions, European design movements, and nature—that inform the more than fifty works included in this volume, part of a remarkable gift by collector Martin Eidelberg. Professor Eidelberg contributes an essay on the proliferation of natural imagery in the aesthetics of the period. A fascinating and focused exploration of design history, Making it Modern offers a closer look at dozens of astonishingly creative ceramics and reflects on how the aspiration to create works that link the past to a vibrant future has continued resonance today. 

As European and American interest in Asian art grew in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, Western consumers coveted expensive lacquerware for its gloss, durability, and rich ornament. This edition of the Bulletin examines the evolving discourse surrounding japanned furniture, an artform cultivated by European and North American tradesmen that was inspired by luxury lacquer items from China and Japan. Using resin from native conifers or imported sandarac, copal, and shellac, they imitated the medium and the motifs used in traditional lacquer objects. Featuring more than a dozen examples of japanned chests, tables, and mirrors, American Japanned Furniture discusses the works’ patronage and aesthetic origins while also uncovering a new artistic attribution to Thomas Johnston for key examples in The Met’s Collection– a discovery which not only sheds new light on Johnston’s work, but also helps shape a new understanding of the Museum’s japanned furniture.

Every two years the fall issue of The Met's quarterly Bulletin celebrates notable recent acquisitions and gifts to the collection. Highlights of Recent Acquisitions 2022–2024 include the monumental handscroll painting Streams and Mountains without End, a masterwork by the Qing-dynasty painter Wang Yuanqi; the nineteenth century painting Bélizaire and the Frey Children which offers a rare depiction of an identified Black teenager with the children of his enslaver; Helene Schjerfbeck’s The Lace Shawl, which is a layered, dramatic portrait of the artist’s friend and landlady. Meanwhile, Leopoldo Méndez’s linocut depiction of the great Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada expands the already distinguished collection of twentieth-century Mexican graphic arts in the Department of Drawings and Prints. This publication also honors the many generous contributions from donors that make possible the continued growth of The Met collection.

Featuring more than fifty works by artists such as José Guadalupe Posada, Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Leopoldo Méndez, this issue of the Bulletin explores the rich artistic legacy of printmaking in Mexico from the mid-eighteenth to mid-twentieth century. Curator Mark McDonald traces the origins of The Met’s remarkable holdings of nearly two thousand Mexican prints first collected by the French-born artist Jean Charlot, who had been active in Mexico when the art form rose in prominence amid concerns of national identity following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). Highlighting a variety of styles and techniques, including silkscreen, letterpress, and woodcut, this vibrantly illustrated publication offers a richer understanding of Mexican prints through an analysis of how they were used as modes of political expression, education, and resistance in Mexico.

This timely issue of the Bulletin brings together fourteen voices from across curatorial departments and Met Trustees to consider how artists and cultures throughout history have explored the nature of leadership, interrogated the workings of society, and redefined the ideals of freedom and democracy. The essays in this issue center around one of three different themes: the ways societies are formed through collective collaboration, the symbols of leadership and civilization, and the images of leaders that commemorate, mythologize, or even obscure those who govern. By expanding worldviews and building bridges among disparate experiences, The Met plays a vital part in considering the definition of leadership and what it means to build a society. This volume asserts museums’ roles as keepers of histories and places of reflection and learning. As stewards of five thousand years of art from around the globe, The Met is privileged to preserve, share, and reevaluate the countless stories told by the objects in its collection while connecting them to the present day.

Court painting, both devotional and secular, has a long history in India and has inspired artists from diverse global traditions. This Bulletin features more than fifty stunning examples of Indian court painting by Mughal, Deccani, Rajasthani, and Pahari artists all from the former collection of British painter Howard Hodgkin (1932–2017). The works featured include stunning portraits, beautifully detailed text illustrations, studies of the natural world, and devotional subjects. Authors explore Hodgkins’s interest in these works and the relationship between his collecting and artistic practice while also providing detailed discussions of individual styles of the Indian courts and the vibrant exchange across their kingdoms from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

Expanding the understanding of textile and fiber arts, this edition of the Bulletin features two distinct bodies of work that are intimately connected despite being separated by hundreds of years. Placing ancient Andean textiles from South America by unknown artists in conversation with works by global modern practitioners—such as Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney, and Olga de Amaral—Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art shows how both traditions harnessed the structure of the loom to create dynamic geometric designs. The 50 extraordinary pieces in this volume span over 2000 years and illustrate weaving’s complex and varied ways of conveying meaning, from stunning iconography to bold structural choices. In highlighting the aesthetic and cultural choices of both ancient and modern artists, this publication elevates textile arts beyond mere ornament to assert their role in the history of art past and present.

In celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Arts of Korea Gallery, this issue of the Bulletin invites us to reflect on the past while embracing the future. Featuring objects from the Bronze Age to the present, Lineages: Korean Art at The Met illustrates both the continuities and ruptures of style, form, and medium that have defined the dynamic terrain of Korean art. The 47 works included—from lacquer and ceramics to paintings and collage—express Korean tradition, history, and socio-cultural change over more than three centuries of creativity. This volume honors one of the first museum galleries in the United States dedicated to Korean art by offering readers a greater understanding of the nation's aesthetic past and future.

Pottery is one of the world’s most ancient and widespread technologies. Containing the Divine: Ancient Peruvian Pots explores how ceramic vessels can convey meaning far beyond their practical use. As this Bulletin attests, before the implementation of writing as we understand it today, Andean artisans used the shape and decoration of jars and bottles to communicate essential information for ritual practice and to promote the exchange of ideas. The more than 40 evocative works featured in these pages represent some 2,500 years of creativity in ancient Peru, with a focus on how these imaginative works served as conduits to worldly and divine power. Providing a rich opportunity to reflect on devotional practices of the past and today, Containing the Divine also shows how the legacy of these pots has inspired subsequent generations worldwide, from nineteenth-century British potters and French Post-Impressionist Paul Gaugin to contemporary Peruvian artist Juan Javier Salazar.

The Gosford Wellhead is one of the most remarkable works of Roman sculpture to enter The Met collection in decades. This Bulletin traces the marble wellhead’s surprising journey to New York, beginning with its discovery in Ostia, Rome’s ancient port, in 1797, and including a long residence in Gosford House, one of Scotland’s most majestic private homes. The authors closely examine the marble wellhead’s superbly carved imagery of two Greek myths related to water: Narcissus and Echo and Hylas and the Nymphs. Uncovering impressive early restorations and featuring a modern technical analysis, this Bulletin provides a focused study of a singular masterpiece whose cultural history weaves from ancient Rome to the present day.