This beautiful book features masterpieces of sculpture in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum dating from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. Celebrated works by the great European sculptors--including Luca and Andrea della Robbia, Juan Martínez Montañés, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Antoine-Louis Barye, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Rodin--are joined by striking new additions to the collection, notably Franz Xaver Messerschmidt's remarkable bust of a troubled and introspective man.

The ninety-two selected examples are diverse in media (marble, bronze, wood, terracotta, and ivory) and size--ranging from a tiny oil lamp fantastically conceived and decorated by the Renaissance bronze sculptor Riccio to Antonio Canova's eight-foot-high Perseus with the Head of Medusa, executed in the heroic Neoclassical style. Incorporating information from the latest scholarly research and recent conservation studies, sculpture specialist Ian Wardropper discusses the history and significance of the highlighted works, each of which is reproduced with glorious new photography.

Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press