Chimera - New York City, NY
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Metro2
N 40° 46.762 W 073° 57.762
18T E 587529 N 4514782
Two similar sculptures of chimeras are located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Waymark Code: WMN7A3
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 01/10/2015
Views: 5
Two similar sculptures of chimeras are located on either side of an entryway within the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Museum's website for one of the pieces (
visit link) informs us:
"Chimera
Period: Six Dynasties (220–589)
Date: 5th century
Culture: China
Medium: Stone
Dimensions: H. 21 1/2 in. (54.6 cm); W. 18 in. (45.7 cm); L. 18 1/2 in. (47 cm)
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1973
Accession Number: 63.224.1
On view in Gallery 205"
Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"The Chimera ... was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from his back, and a tail that might end with a snake's head, the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra.
The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling."