Face to Face

The Israel Museum will open an exhibition entitled Face to Face: The Oldest Masks in the World on March 11. Curated by Dr. Debby Hershman, the show will be a first in many respects, as the 9000-year-old limestone masks that are its subject— twelve of which are known—have never been brought together before, even on their home territory.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Photos courtesy of The Israel Museum

Arts de l'antiquité, uen collection centenaire

Arts de l'antiquité, uen collection centenaire (Arts of Antiquity, a Centenary Collection), on view until October 6 at the Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva, reflects the passion of three generations of collectors of ancient art. Begun by Josef Mueller in the early twentieth century, the collection of antiquities at the Barbier-Mueller Museum was enriched by the acquisitions of his son-in-law Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller and of his grandsons. The pieces on display, chosen for their aesthetic quality, are ambassadors of civilization as varied as the Cyclades, Predynastic and Pharaonic Egypt, Greece, and Rome. They are landmarks in this representative tour of the artistic production of the ancient world. The panorama offered to visitors illustrates the major tendencies, the extraordinary diversity, and the vitality of the art of antiquity, from the sixth millennium BC to the third century AD.

View the exhibition's official website.

Female figure  -  Cyclades  -  circa 2900 BC

Female figure ("Bactrian Princess")   -  Oxus civilization  -  End of 3rd millennium BC

Vase with scorpion-men  -  Southeast Iran  -  2600–2200 BC

Information and images courtesy of the Musée Barbier-Mueller de Genève

The Art of the Anatolian Kilim at the de Young Museum

A world-class collection of Anatolian kilim textiles given to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco by H. McCoy Jones and his wife, Caroline, is showcased in a choice exhibition of two dozen of the finest examples. Presented in the textile arts gallery at the de Young, the Anatolian flat-woven textiles on view, dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, include a variety of design types and regional styles, as well as superb examples of artistic and visual prowess. The examples in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s permanent collection are considered the most important group of such Anatolian textiles outside Turkey.

Visit the de Young's official website.

Information and images courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco