Assyrian Reliefs and Ivories in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Résumé : The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses monumental, majestic, and important works of art from the ancient world. In particular, a group of Assyrian sculptures from the Northwest Palace at Nimrud, which was constructed during the reign of Assurnasirpal II (883–859 B.C.), is remarkable both for its artistic excellence and for its technical skill. Excavated at Nimrud in the mid-nineteenth century by Sir Austen Henry Layard, an English archaeologist, the majority of these impressive, larger-than-life-size reliefs and sculptures came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1932 as gifts of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., one of the Museum's most generous supporters. Other Assyrian pieces were gifts to the Museum in 1917 from J. Pierpont Morgan, another major figure in the Metropolitan's history. An earlier donor, Benjamin Brewster, began the Museum's collection of Assyrian reliefs with a gift in 1884.