The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of my favorite places on Earth. I first visited when I was 11 years old, roughly around the same time I started to seriously ask my grandparents questions about family history. As a college freshmen in New York City, The Met was the first outing I made in the week after The Attacks on September 11, 2001. It gave me so much peace to walk through those quiet halls, seeing art from many millennia, all over the world. Humanity has endured so much, and this artwork, representing our everlasting creativity, can give inspiration as we face our current struggles.
Sometimes my mind wanders, and I think of the likelihood that The Met contains objects that our distant ancestors saw, or maybe even held or made. Pedigree collapse implies that after a certain number of generations, there are far more people in our family tree than were living on Earth. Anyone in those distant times was either a common ancestor of practically everyone living today, or no one. The ancient Levant, Egypt, Indus Valley, China, Greece, Rome — a majority of Met visitors have likely distant ancestral ties, but exact specifics are lost to time.
"Tree of Jesse Window," with the harpist King David and Jesus Christ. Swabia, Germany, late 1200s. Met Gallery 304.
Western European "nobles" are among the few people whose ancient genealogies have been preserved, due to colonialism, classism, racism, and all the -isms. Modern genealogists talk about a "gateway ancestor" to this recorded past, and last month I may have found my own. My supposed 12th-great-grandfather Adrián de Gorraiz was a military captain born in Gorraiz, Navarra (now Spain) in the 1550s or 1560s, who baptized his daughter in Vélez, Colombia in 1619. It's no accident that Adrián's surname matched his hometown, since his father was likely the "Lord of Gorraiz," residing in the small town's palace-fortress. Adrián's likely paternal grandmother, Ana de Beaumont, claimed descent from Carlos de Beaumont (c.1361-1432), an illegitimate 3rd-great-grandson of St. Louis IX, king of France (1214-1270).
This haughty line of descent weakens when tracing Adrián de Gorraiz's Colombian descendants. A 17th-century genealogy says his daughter, Ana de Gorraiz, had a son named Adrián de Orozco Gorraiz, and 20th-century genealogists say the younger Adrián is the father of Francisca Gómez de Orozco (d.1764), who married my 9th-great-grandfather, Alonso Sarmiento de Olivera (c.1664-1754), and so forth. I'm not aware of primary sources that back these claims, especially for Francisca's parents. So feel free to call all my work on this a fool's errand.
But taking the big leap that this is all correct, I was curious to see if The Met had any objects associated with my supposed Navarrese and French royal ancestors. To my surprise, I saw that they do! So come along with me on my recent visit to The Met, as I climbed my supposed family tree and saw some very, very long-lost "family heirlooms."
The Met's Medieval Sculpture Hall, Gallery 305, displays a large Christmas tree and a legion of antique Nativity figurines (seen at the top of the post) every December. As you enter that room, the immediate right corner shows a trio of kneeling marble donor figures from an altar or tomb. They demonstrate the patrons' piety at a (now missing) religious scene, and subtly remind the viewer that they coughed up the dough for the art.
Grandpa Jean (left) with his parents, Great-Grandpa Philippe and Great-Grandma Jeanne. Met Gallery 305.
Appropriately, we start this supposed family album with uncertain identification. The young prince on the left may be the most recent French king in my family tree: supposed 19th-great-grandfather King Jean II (1319-1364). His crowned parents could be my supposed 20th-great-grandparents: King Philippe VI (1293-1350) and Queen Jeanne of Burgundy (c.1293-1349). Jeanne died of bubonic plague, and perhaps it killed Philippe as well? Jean is known as "the Good," but he went on to have a pretty mediocre reign, spending a third of it as an English prisoner of war.
Next to the trio is the burial plaque of Philippe VI's daughter-in-law, Blanche de France (1328-1393). Or rather, the plaque where Blanche's fleshy organs were buried, in an abbey in Pont-aux-Dames, while her bones went to the Saint-Denis Basilica in Paris. During the French Revolution, both her tombs were vandalized and ornamental bits and pieces ended up in Gilded Age robber barons' art collections.
Cousin Blanche's burial plaque, Met Gallery 305.
With Blanche died the "direct Capetian" family that claimed patrilineal descent of all French kings, stretching back to King Hugh Capet (c.941-996). Sexist Salic law prevented Blanche and her older sister, Marie de France, from claiming the throne, and it went to her father's paternal cousin, Philippe VI of the House of Valois, who we saw kneeling.
Blanche's relationship to my supposed ancestors is kind of a headache, thanks to the House of Capet and House of Valois constantly kissing cousins. Her father, King Charles IV, was the brother of my supposed 20th-great-grandfather, King Louis X of France (1289-1316). Her mother, Jeanne d'Evreux, was the younger sister of my supposed 19th-great-grandfather, King Felipe III of Navarra (aka Philippe d'Evreux). Blanche's parents were first cousins, the grandchildren of my supposed 21st/22nd-great-grandfather, King Philippe III of France (1245-1285). Blanche's husband was also a great-grandson of Philippe III, making the spouses second cousins at least twice over.
The plaque inscription, written in severe Gothic lettering, reads in part, "Here lie the entrails of the lady of noble memory, my lady Blanche, daughter of the late Charles, king of France and of Navarre, and of the queen, Jeanne d'Evreux, his wife. This daughter was the wife of my lord the Duke of Orleans of the house of Valois and of Beaumont..." Seeing "Beaumont" in Gothic lettering is fun, but technically this doesn't have to do with my supposed ancestor, Carlos de Beaumont. At the same time that Carlos's father, Prince Luis of Navarra, claimed to be the count of Beaumont-le-Roger in Normandy, it seems the French prince who married Blanche also claimed the title of count of Beaumont-le-Roger. I honestly don't know whether there was a "true" count of Beaumont-le-Roger at this time.
"Beaumont" is at the end of the middle row.
Right in front of the donor figures and Blanche's burial plaque is more carved marble: the partial tomb effigy of Blanche's sister, Marie de France (1327-1341), lying under the canopy of the tomb of her great-grandfather, King Philippe III of France. Thankfully, I don't have to explain again how Marie is related. Almost guillotined, Marie's head and shoulders are detached from a life-size statuette, and a metal crown was wrenched off of her head, leaving behind holes. You can still see her delicately carved Princess Leia-style braids.
All these royal effigy statues had marble "canopies" resembling vaulted cathedral ceilings above their heads, which apparently symbolize the firmament of Heaven. Marie's original canopy was smaller, but now she lies under a fancier canopy intended for a king. You go, girl boss! "Grotesque animals" cover King Philippe III's canopy, and I especially like this little winged critter.
Walk around a column to the right, and you see a memento from Blanche and Marie's mother, Queen Jeanne d'Evreux (1310-1371). The same abbey at Pont-aux-Dames that received Blanche's guts was previously gifted from Queen Jeanne a gilded marble statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus around 1340. Delicate golden flower patterns bring this statue to life, compared to other statues of the time that are usually bereft of pigments. Baby Jesus reaches for a pyx, the tiny cup that contains the Eucharist, foretelling his death and resurrection.
Returning to the Medieval Sculpture Hall, to the left of the kneeling donors are two hooded alabaster mourners clutching giant prayer books. These were carved for the tomb of Jean, Duke of Berry (1340-1416), who was the son of my supposed ancestor, King Jean II.
The Duke of Berry, called "Jean the Magnificent," and his three brothers helped France regain the upper hand in the Hundred Years' War during the late 1300s, but today he is best remembered as an art collector, especially for his superbly illuminated Book of Hours.
The Met Cloisters has in its Treasury another prayer book that once belonged to the Duke of Berry's mother, my supposed 19th-great-grandmother, Bonne of Luxembourg. She died of bubonic plague on September 11, 1349, just over a year before her husband, Jean II, succeeded as king of France. Bonne's book has stunning, colorful marginalia of birds, small mammals, and human-faced chimeras.
The Met Cloisters also displays in a reconstructed "Gothic chapel" multiple tomb effigies of five distant relations of mine: the Counts of Urgell, which is in Catalonia, Spain. They are descendants of my supposed 29th-great-grandfather, Count Ermengol IV (c.1055-1092), including Counts Ermengol VII, Ermengol IX and Ermengol X. The remaining pigment on Ermengol VII's effigy shows that these early 14th-century limestone tomb sculptures were once eye-grabbing, rather than muted and somber.
Back in The Met's Medieval Europe Gallery (Room 304), there's an illuminated page from a psalter that belonged to my supposed 23rd-great-grandmother, Eleanor of Provence (c.1223-1291).
Wikipedia has a disturbing illustration of Eleanor's marriage to King Henry III of England in 1236, when he was 28 years old and she was 12 or 13. It drives home how, at a time of dynastic politics and low life expectancy, elites frequently betrothed their children in infancy and often married them off well before maturity. Around age 16, Eleanor birthed the heir, King Edward I, and three years later she birthed my supposed ancestor, Beatrix, Duchess of Brittany. Beatrix married the duke at age 17 and became a mother at 19.
Gallery 304 contains an incredibly old and bedazzled sacred book cover made for my supposed 28th-great-grandmother, the Aragonese queen Felicia de Roucy (c.1060-1123). Amazingly, a number of decorative elements survived over nine centuries, including the central ivory crucifix scene, gold filigree, and some stones. One can only imagine how it looked with all its original stones, enamel finish, and shine.
Finally, as part of The Met's 2022 exhibition "The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England," I saw Queen Elizabeth I's pedigree from the Folger Shakespeare Library, which shows how her great-grandparents each descended from a "Tree of Edward," equating King Edward III with the biblical "Tree of Jesse" seen at the top of this post. Edward III was the maternal grandson of my supposed 21st great-grandparents, King Philippe IV of France and Queen Jeanne I of Navarra, and the paternal great-grandson of my supposed 23rd-great-grandparents, King Henry III and Queen Eleanor of England, seen above.
Not all wealth is in gold and crowns. Gallery 304 also has a beautifully illuminated Hebrew bible made in 14th-century Castilla (now Spain), showing the rich literacy and cultural knowledge of medieval Spanish Jews, who were the ancestors of my Dad's Cohen family and possibly some of my Mom's Ashkenazi family. The book's one-time owner, David ha-Kohen Coutinho, signed his name on the pages on Rosh Hashanah in 1366 CE. In particular, I love the abstract patterns made by interlocking lines of Hebrew text, giving these sublime words a visual beauty.
My jaw dropped seeing "Portrait of a Man with a Hebrew Tablet" (c.1575), a stunning work by Antonio Campi, among Italian Sculpture and Decorative Arts (Gallery 503). The stylish Italian Renaissance subject holds onto a stone tablet with a Hebrew inscription: "The Torah of Moses is truth." Medieval and early modern Jewish history often deals with victimhood, ghettos, and persecution, and it's refreshing to see an ancient, confident Jewish man present his faith in such an aesthetic manner.
Contrasting Western "noble" descent with Jewish heritage, my best friend from college, who was born in Ukraine, summarized for me an unforgettable poem by Russian bard Alexander Gorodnitsky. He starts with a list of birds that do not resemble him. He is not an eagle, who feeds on blood; not an albatross, who rules the seas; not an owl, who robs at night; not a peacock, who is tired of flirting; not a goose who's grown so fat he is unable to fly. Of all the birds, the one that's dearest to him is the sparrow, who happily chirps and dances freylachs on the city sidewalk. All people, like all birds, possess beauty that deserves praise and recognition.
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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