Mourners at the Met

After seeing an article in the Times, I went with Jenn to the Met to the see the procession of 37 alabaster mourners (plus another three in a separate glass case) who have been liberated from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon and are beginning an eight-city tour.

I don’t think I can improve on the Times‘ description:

There is nothing stiff about these figures; their postures are realized with grace and subtlety. One leans forward and raises up his pudgy, beautifully rendered hands in a touching gesture of helpless sadness. Another sings from a hymnal. Some seem to sway, as if to funerary music. Though enveloped by their voluminous, luxuriantly draped and folded cloaks, the invisible bodies within are expressed on the surface, and give each figure vivid sense of animation.

Photography is not allowed, but there’s a nifty website that allows you get a 360-degree view of each figure, from three different angles.