The Metropolitan Museum of Art

PrefaceThe present volume, Publications of The Metropolitan Museumof Art, 1964 – 2005, is a successor to a volume published bythe Museum in 1965 entitled Publications of The MetropolitanMuseum of Art, 1870 – 1964. These two bibliographic volumesendeavor to list all the known books, pamphlets, and serialpublications bearing the Museum’s imprint and issued by theinstitution during the first 135 years of its existence (throughJune 2005). The first volume was compiled by Albert TenEyckGardner, at that time an Associate Curator of AmericanPaintings and Sculpture, and the present volume has beencompiled from the Annual Reports issued by the Museumduring the relevant years.Together the two volumes testify to the tremendouscontributions made to knowledge by the curators andconservators of the Metropolitan and by the many other expertswho have contributed to the Museum’s exhibition catalogues.Various issues of the Bulletin emphasize the great sweep of theMuseum’s acquisitions during these years, and the exhibitioncatalogues — a number of them winners of the Alfred H. Barr,Jr., Award or the George Wittenborn Award — testify to thecontinuity of the institution’s dedicated program to enrichpeople’s lives through knowledge of art.The Museum’s publications program is based upon theMuseum’s very first publication, the Charter, Constitution, andBy-Laws of 1870, which states that the Metropolitan Museumwas established for the purpose “of encouraging and developingthe study of the fine arts — of advancing the general knowledgeof kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popularinstruction.”The Museum has published many significant volumessince 1964, particularly during the years after 1978 whenPhilippe de Montebello became Director of the Museum. Themost notable volumes include three studies of Byzantine art —Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third