Enfilade

Now on view at The Met:

Collecting the Arts of Mexico
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 July 2015 — 7 August 2016

Nicolás Enríquez, The Virgin of Guadalupe with the Four Apparitions (detail), 1773, oil on copper, 56.5 x 41.9 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014.173)

In 1911, Emily Johnston de Forest gave her collection of pottery from Mexico to the Metropolitan Museum. Calling it ‘Mexican maiolica’, she highlighted its importance as a North American artistic achievement. De Forest was the daughter of the Museum’s first president and, with her husband, Robert, a founder of The American Wing. The De Forests envisioned building a collection of Mexican art, and, even though their ambitions were frustrated at the time, the foundational gift of more than one hundred pieces of pottery anchors the Met’s holdings. Today, more than a century later, their vision resonates as the Museum commits to collecting and exhibiting not just the arts of Mexico, but all of Latin America. This exhibition highlights the early contributions of the De Forests and others, and presents recent additions to the collection for the first time.

Learn more about five paintings by Nicolas Enriquez (1704–1790) featured in this exhibition on MetCollects.