At the Met, Portraits of Grief, Written in Stone

These fellows from 16 inches high with clothing drive. Shuffling two by two, strong 36, behind a choirboy in a black track in the Metropolitan Museum of Medieval Art cavernous Hall, are like an army of fairy-tale dwarves into stone by an evil sorcerer . unhappy campers, cry, sigh, gesture sad and praying, mourning the death of his sovereign, John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (1371-1419).

They are far from home, and will be a while before they can return. Lovingly carved in alabaster by Juan de la Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier, which comes from the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, France. "The mourners: Medieval tomb sculptures of the Court of Burgundy", organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon under the aegis of Marco (French Regional and American Museum Exchange).


(In addition to the 37 central mourners presented, three more who were separated from the group long ago and are now owned by different museums are also on view in a separate window. Lost One last has not been found.)

Instructed by the daring John to create a tomb almost identical to that of his father Philip II of Burgundy, de la Huerta and Moiturier He spent 25 years working on the project. Both graves - cenotaphs, in fact, as the remains were buried elsewhere - were originally located in the Chartreuse of Champmol, a Carthusian monastery in Dijon, the official center of the Burgundian dynasty of power.