Round Box Brooch

Round Box Brooch

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A menagerie of tiny animals inhabits the interlace patterns on this round brooch. The four oval compartments on the top show beasts with round eyes, open jaws, claw feet, and intricately entwined bodies. Known as a box brooch because it was used as a container for small objects, it would have been worn by a Viking woman on the island of Gotland to secure her shawl at the collar.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.