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The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy
Exhibition
The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy
22 Jul 2019 – 12 Jan 2020
Regular hours
- Monday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Tuesday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 17:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 21:00
- Sunday
- 10:00 – 17:00
Address
- 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street)
- New York
New York - NY 10028
- United States
For more than 500 years, a small cache of jewelry and coins lay hidden within the walls of a house in Colmar, France.
About
Secreted there in the 14th century and discovered in 1863, the Colmar Treasure—now in the collection of the Musée de Cluny, Paris—comprises rings of sapphire, ruby, garnet, and turquoise; jeweled and fanciful brooches; a delicate enameled belt; gilded buttons; and more than 300 coins. The precious possessions of a single family, the inscription mazel tov on one ring links the hoard to Colmar’s once-thriving Jewish community, who were brutally scapegoated and put to death when the Plague struck the region with devastating ferocity in 1348–49. The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy, opening July 22 at The Met Cloisters, will point to both legacy and loss, underscoring the prominence of, and perils faced by, the Jewish minority community in the tumultuous 14th century.
The exhibition is made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.
Additional support is provided by the David Berg Foundation.
Consisting of objects that are small in scale and relatively few in number, the Colmar Treasure will be displayed alongside related works from The Cloisters Collection, The Jewish Theological Seminary, the Bibliothèque municipale in Colmar, and distinguished private collections in the United States. In the evocative setting of The Met Cloisters—a museum whose very name seems to proclaim a uniquely Christian world—this exhibition will offer a poignant tribute to Jewish artistic heritage and its role in art and society in medieval Europe.
