From crocodiles to couture, Brooklyn Museum celebrates myriad golden ages
“Nothing gold can stay,” as Robert Frost wrote in his 1923 Pulitzer Prize-winning poem—but Solid Gold at the Brooklyn Museum (until 6 July) insists on the material’s endurance. Spanning fine art, numismatics, fashion, jewellery and design, the exhibition traces gold’s perennial association with political, economic, technological and religious power from ancient civilisations to the present day.
The show foregrounds the tension between gold’s role as a protective emblem and its fraught history of exploitation. One standout example is a gold plaque from the ancient Coclé culture (a pre-Columbian civilisation in contemporary Panama), an object that bridges art, fashion and ritual. Depicting a crocodile deity baring its teeth, the pendant functioned not only as an earthly ornament but also as a talisman, offering the wearer spiritual protection in battle. Nearby, William Kentridge’s short film Mine (1991) offers a counterpoint, reflecting on the environmental and human costs of South Africa’s gold industry.
Gold’s widespread use in haute couture and decorative arts is unsurprising, but its impact in the work of 20th-century artists is a revelation. For instance, a gold-leaf-covered canvas by Agnes Martin features her signature Minimalist grids, incised using the sgraffito technique. A gold-painted assemblage by Louise Nevelson remakes the template of her wooden sculptures, reflecting her desire to explore gold as a “staple of the world for ages”. In this gilded journey from an Egyptian sarcophagus to Alexander Calder’s jewellery designs, the exhibition affirms that the material is worth its symbolic and economic weight, even as its deeply complicated legacy persists.
Sargent’s infamous Portrait of Madame X (1883–84), depicting Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, was considered scandalous at the time
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Sargent’s Paris years laid bare at the Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art marks the centenary of John Singer Sargent’s death with Sargent and Paris (until 3 August). Arriving in 1874 as a young art student, the American portraitist spent a formative decade in the City of Light, thriving in a cultural circle of academic and avant-garde artists, writers and socialites.
The exhibition features studies of urban life and interior scenes—often of elegant women posed in studied nonchalance—culminating with his infamous Portrait of Madame X (1883–84). The portrait, depicting the American Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau in a low-cut black gown, caused an uproar at the 1884 Paris Salon. Critics were scandalised by her socialite pallor, which Sargent once described as “a uniform lavender or blotting-paper colour all over”, and by her precariously perched dress strap. Sargent later repainted the strap upright and sold the work to the Met in 1915. “I suppose it is the best thing I have done,” he wrote to the then director Edward Robinson. For the first time, the portrait is reunited with its many preparatory sketches, casting fresh light on the evolution of one of Sargent’s most controversial works.
The show and its catalogue offer a deep dive into Madame X, tracing Sargent’s process, his eclectic art-historical influences, his collaboration with Gautreau and the ways the work was ultimately shaped by the art and people he encountered in Paris. As the curator Stephanie L. Herdrich writes in the catalogue, the painting stands as a symbol of “chic, empowerment and redemption after scandal”—themes that remain strikingly relevant today.
Rembrandt’s Esther-inspired etching, The Great Jewish Bride (1635)
Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Courageous Esther’s influence on 17th-century Dutch art explored
The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt (until 10 August) at New York’s Jewish Museum brings together works by the Dutch master and his contemporaries alongside domestic and ceremonial objects to chart the cross-cultural resonance of the biblical tale. Central to Purim celebrations, the Book of Esther recounts how Esther, the queen of Persia, risked her life to save the Jewish people in Susa (present-day Shush, Iran). “Queen Esther’s story about resilience and courage in the face of persecution resonated widely in 17th-century Netherlands when Amsterdam became a safe haven for many,” the curator Abigail Rapoport says in a press statement.
Buoyed by a flourishing print culture, Amsterdam grew as a site of comparative religious tolerance. It was a time when Esther emerged as a key artistic inspiration. Her image resonated not only with immigrant Jewish communities but also with Protestant audiences who, in the wake of Dutch independence from Spanish Habsburg rule, embraced her as a moral and heroic symbol. Rembrandt and his contemporaries such as Jan Lievens, Pieter Lastman and Frans Francken II explored the theme at length, with Gerrit van Honthorst even depicting Protestant royals in Esther’s guise.
These portrayals combined the biblical narrative with fantastical visions of the Middle East. The story also adorned snuffboxes, cabinets and textiles, cementing Esther’s legacy as a symbol of resilience and a cultural fixture in a city undergoing political and religious transformation.
Promised gifts include a 16th-century wax relief of Pope Pius V
Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Morgan Library & Museum marks centennial with major gift showcase
The Morgan Library & Museum is commemorating its centennial with an exhibition (9 May-17 August) of around 100 works pledged as donations to honour the anniversary. Originally established in 1924 as the Pierpont Morgan Library by Jack Morgan, the son of the financier and collector J.P. Morgan, the Manhattan institution has significantly broadened its collecting scope in the century since. The promised gifts include Medieval Books of Hours, 20th-century photography, sheet music by composers ranging from Franz Schubert to John Coltrane and drawings by artists such as Parmigianino and Frida Kahlo.
One highlight is a rare 16th-century wax relief of Pope Pius V receiving the courtier Teodosio Fiorenzi. Curiously, the wax composition is housed in a red goatskin-covered, book-shaped box made by the Vatican Bindery, the official workshop responsible for the papal court’s bookbinding. “It is the perfect combination of art history and book history,” says John McQuillen, the associate curator of printed books and bindings at the Morgan. “It really shows the personal connection to the object and how it may well have been stored and viewed—as a personal viewing experience rather than how a painting or other large commemorative work may have been displayed.”
Elsewhere, the show confirms the Morgan’s esteemed standing within the contemporary art community. Promised gifts include drawings by Giuseppe Penone, Julian Schnabel and Bridget Riley—all pledged by the artists themselves.
