Its buildings are centered around four cloisters—the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont, and Trie—that were acquired by American sculptor and art dealer George Grey Barnard in France before 1913 and moved to New York.

In the process he built a large personal collection of what he described as "antiques", at first by buying and selling stand-alone objects with French dealers,[8] then by the acquisition of in situ architectural artifacts from local farmers.

[16] Under consultation with Bosworth,[7] he decided to build the museum at a 66.5-acre (26.9 ha) site at Fort Tryon Park, which they chose for its elevation, views, and accessible but isolated location.

Parts from Sant Miquel de Cuixà, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Bonnefont-en-Comminges, Trie-sur-Baïse and Froville were disassembled stone-by-stone and shipped to New York City, where they were reconstructed and integrated into a cohesive whole.

The Cloisters has never focused on building a collection of masterpieces; rather, the objects are chosen thematically yet arranged simply to enhance the atmosphere created by the architectural elements in the particular setting or room in which they are placed.

[5] To create the atmosphere of a functioning series of cloisters, many of the individual works, including capitals, doorways, stained glass, and windows are placed within the architectural elements themselves.

[32] Further pieces of note include a 13th-century English Enthroned Virgin and Child statuette,[33] a c. 1490 German statue of Saint Barbara,[34] and an early 16th-century boxwood Miniature Altarpiece with the Crucifixion.

[35] Other significant works include fountains and baptismal fonts, chairs,[36] aquamaniles (water containers in animal or human form), bronze lavers, alms boxes and playing cards.

[37] The museum has an extensive collection of medieval European frescoes, ivory statuettes, reliquary wood and metal shrines and crosses, as well as examples of the very rare Gothic boxwood miniatures.

[24] At the same time, the consensus within the Met was that the Cloisters should focus on architectural elements, sculpture and decorative arts to enhance the environmental quality of the institution, whereas manuscripts were considered more suited to the Morgan Library in lower Manhattan.

The use of grisaille (shades of gray) drawings allowed the artist to give the figures a highly sculptural form,[52] and the miniatures contain structures typical of French Gothic architecture of the period.

[56] While examples of textile art are displayed throughout the museum, there are two dedicated rooms given to individual series of tapestries, the South Netherlandish Nine Heroes (c. 1385)[57] and Flemish The Hunt of the Unicorn (c. 1500).

The chivalric figures represent the scriptural and legendary Nine Worthies, who consist of three pagans (Hector, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar), three Jews (Joshua, David and Judas Maccabeus) and three Christians (King Arthur, Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon).

It was originally one of a series of eight tapestries representing the salvation of man,[67] with individual scenes influenced by identifiable panel paintings, including by van der Weyden.

[74] The Met's collection grew in the early 20th century when Raymond Picairn made acquisitions at a time when medieval glass was not highly regarded by connoisseurs, and was difficult to extract and transport.

[82] The east elevation, mostly of limestone, contains nine arcades from the Benedictine priory at Froville and four flamboyant French Gothic windows from the Dominican monastery at Sens, Burgundy.

[93] According to art historian Thomas Dale, to the monks, the "human figures, beasts, and monsters" may have represented the "tension between the world and the cloister, the struggle to repress the natural inclinations of the body".

[96] The capitals contain acanthus leaves and grotesque heads peering out,[97] including figures at the Presentation at the Temple, Daniel in the Lions' Den[98] and the Mouth of Hell,[99] and several pilasters and columns.

Rockefeller had initially wanted a high roof and clerestory windows, but was convinced by Joseph Breck, curator of decorative arts at the Metropolitan, to install a skylight.

Breck wrote to Rockefeller that "by substituting a skylight for a solid ceiling ... the sculpture is properly illuminated, since the light falls in a natural way; the visitor has the sense of being in the open; and his attention, consequently, is not attracted to the modern superstructure.

[115] The capitals are placed in chronological order, beginning with God in the act of creation at the northwest corner, Adam and Eve in the west gallery, followed by the Binding of Isaac, and Matthew and John writing their gospels.

The entrance from the upper-level Early Gothic Hall is lit by stained glass double-lancet windows, carved on both sides and acquired from the church of La Tricherie, France.

[125] The monument directly facing the main windows is the c. 1248–67 sarcophagus of Jean d'Alluye, a knight of the crusades, who was thought to have returned from the Holy Land with a relic of the True Cross.

[126] Although resting on a modern base,[127] she is dressed in high contemporary aristocratic fashion, including a mantle, cotte, jewel-studded belt and an elaborate ring necklace brooch.

[128] Four of the effigies were made for the Urgell family, are set into the chapel walls, and are associated with the church of Santa Maria at Castello de Farfanya, Catalonia, redesigned in the Gothic style for Ermengol X (died c.

[141] The chapter house consists of a single aisle nave and transepts[142] taken from a small Benedictine parish church built around 1115 at Notre Dame de Pontaut.

[142] The chapel is entered from the Romanesque hall through a doorway, a large, elaborate French Gothic stone entrance commissioned by the Burgundian court[10] for Moutiers-Saint-Jean Abbey in Burgundy, France.

Carvings on the elaborate white oolitic limestone doorway depict the Coronation of the Virgin and contains foliated capitals and statuettes on the outer piers; including two kings positioned in the embrasures and various kneeling angels.

[4] The hall contains four large early-13th-century stone sculptures representing the Adoration of the Magi, frescoes of a lion and a wyvern, each from the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza in north-central Spain.

[162] Recent significant exhibitions include "Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures" which ran in the summer of 2017 in conjunction with the Art Gallery of Ontario and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.