Miniature strongboxes like this example were popular among Europe's wealthy. Because they were made of iron, yet were relatively lightweight and featured a carrying ring, they provided a safe repository for coins, documents, and jewels that could be taken on journeys. This example has the added security feature of being two-faced. One side has the true hasp, the other a false one.

Sometimes called girdle boxes, small portable strongboxes like this one are believed to have been used for transporting important documents or money in the late medieval and early Renaissance periods.

This mask of the ferocious Hindu god Bhairava was created by Newari artists in Nepal. Bhairava is a popular divinity in the Newar community. He also appears as a full figure in the Bhairava collar necklace [1987.470].

This mask represents a boar-headed spirit called Bhuta. Boars are associated with the great Hindu god Vishnu, but Bhuta reflects an ancient nature spirit and was part of rural ritual dances taking place out of doors.

Iron was known to earliest man, first from meteors and later from ore. It was worshipped in Mesopotamia and formed into precious beads in Egypt as early as 4000 B.C. It was smelted from ore at least by 3500 B.C. The Phoenicians paid tribute to the pharoahs in iron. Greeks and Romans valued iron for its strength but preferred bronze for art. They used iron clamps to fasten stone building blocks laid without cement, and indoors to reinforce couches and tripods. Roman legionnaires wielded iron swords in battle.

Resting heavily against an upright support, her cocked hip emphasizing the curve of her body, the Lydian queen Omphale is sensual and ideally proportioned; however, Jean-Léon Gérôme also took great pride in accuracy. He took photographs of his model next to the sculpture for which this is a preparatory sketch. The Lydian queen wears the lion skin of Hercules, whom she had bought as a slave.

A self-taught artist, Théodule Ribot began as a decorator of gilded frames, a copyist of old masters, and a sign painter. After he was refused at the Salon in 1859, he exhibited in the studio of his friend Franҫois Bonvin with Henri Fantin-Latour, Antoine Vollon, Alphonse Legros, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Kente is the best known and most popular of the Asante textiles. Oral traditions credit a spider’s web-making with having inspired two hunters to create the first kente.

Kente is the best known and most popular of the Asante textiles. Oral traditions credit a spider’s web-making with having inspired two hunters to create the first kente.