A new exhibition at The Met Cloisters in New York invites visitors to reconsider the medieval past through the art of human desire. Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages explores how artists from the 13th to 15th centuries depicted passion, devotion, and identity in ways that were both deeply spiritual and strikingly sensual.
Featuring more than 50 artworks, the exhibition brings together gold jewelry, ivory sculptures, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and woven textiles from across western Europe. These works are drawn from The Met’s own collection alongside exceptional loans, including the Rothschild Canticles from Yale University’s Beinecke Library—a devotional manuscript rarely displayed to the public that depicts some of the earliest images of Christian mystical union.
Exploring Desire in the Medieval Imagination
Master Heinrich of Constance (German, active in Constance, ca. 1300) The Visitation, ca. 1310–20 German, Walnut, paint, gilding, rock-crystal cabochons inset in gilt-silver mounts; Overall: 23 1/4 x 11 7/8 x 7 1/4 in. (59.1 x 30.2 x 18.4 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.724) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/464596
“Firmly grounded in decades of scholarship, Spectrum of Desire illuminates the complex ways that people in medieval Europe imagined how to live and love,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “The exceptionally spectacular works of art featured in the exhibition tell us how desire and the visual arts were deeply entwined in ways that are incredibly powerful—and sometimes quite surprising.”
From the 13th through the 15th century, Western Europe underwent profound changes in how sex, family, and relationships were understood and regulated. Yet, as the exhibition reveals, it was also a time of openness and experimentation. Ideas about erotic unions, gender expression, and personal identity were in flux, and artists often explored these themes with humour, subtlety, and beauty.
Among the works on view are ivory writing tablets—some depicting risqué scenes—that may have served as vehicles for lovers’ messages. Other pieces present unexpected interpretations of gender, such as a painting of Saint Jerome in a woman’s dress, or hint at same-sex desire, as seen in a boxwood carving of Eve and a female-headed serpent.
Rethinking the Medieval Past
The Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry – image courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art
For Melanie Holcomb, The Met’s Curator and Manager of Collection Strategy in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, the show challenges long-held assumptions about the period. “Though we might think of the Middle Ages as a repressive era, this exhibition shows that artists explored ideas of sex and gender in fascinating and visually beautiful ways,” she explained.
Co-curator Nancy Thebaut, Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Oxford, highlighted how the exhibition builds upon decades of academic research. “Spectrum of Desire builds upon decades of work by scholars who have pioneered and refined the study of gender and sexuality in medieval Europe. We are excited to share their important work, as well as our own findings, with visitors.”
Through its evocative artworks, Spectrum of Desire encourages modern viewers to see medieval Europe not as prudish or static, but as a world alive with emotional complexity and imaginative freedom.
Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages is now open at The Met Cloisters and will run through March 29, 2026. Click here for more details.
There is also the book, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages, by Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut, which you can get from Yale University Press.
Top Image: Aquamanile in the Form of Phyllis and Aristotle, Netherlandish, late 14th or early 15th century. Copper alloy, 12 ¾ x 7 x 15½ in. (32.5 x 17.9 x 39.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.1416)
A new exhibition at The Met Cloisters in New York invites visitors to reconsider the medieval past through the art of human desire. Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages explores how artists from the 13th to 15th centuries depicted passion, devotion, and identity in ways that were both deeply spiritual and strikingly sensual.
Featuring more than 50 artworks, the exhibition brings together gold jewelry, ivory sculptures, stained glass, illuminated manuscripts, and woven textiles from across western Europe. These works are drawn from The Met’s own collection alongside exceptional loans, including the Rothschild Canticles from Yale University’s Beinecke Library—a devotional manuscript rarely displayed to the public that depicts some of the earliest images of Christian mystical union.
Exploring Desire in the Medieval Imagination
The Visitation, ca. 1310–20
German,
Walnut, paint, gilding, rock-crystal cabochons inset in gilt-silver mounts; Overall: 23 1/4 x 11 7/8 x 7 1/4 in. (59.1 x 30.2 x 18.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.724)
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/464596
“Firmly grounded in decades of scholarship, Spectrum of Desire illuminates the complex ways that people in medieval Europe imagined how to live and love,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “The exceptionally spectacular works of art featured in the exhibition tell us how desire and the visual arts were deeply entwined in ways that are incredibly powerful—and sometimes quite surprising.”
From the 13th through the 15th century, Western Europe underwent profound changes in how sex, family, and relationships were understood and regulated. Yet, as the exhibition reveals, it was also a time of openness and experimentation. Ideas about erotic unions, gender expression, and personal identity were in flux, and artists often explored these themes with humour, subtlety, and beauty.
Among the works on view are ivory writing tablets—some depicting risqué scenes—that may have served as vehicles for lovers’ messages. Other pieces present unexpected interpretations of gender, such as a painting of Saint Jerome in a woman’s dress, or hint at same-sex desire, as seen in a boxwood carving of Eve and a female-headed serpent.
Rethinking the Medieval Past
For Melanie Holcomb, The Met’s Curator and Manager of Collection Strategy in the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, the show challenges long-held assumptions about the period. “Though we might think of the Middle Ages as a repressive era, this exhibition shows that artists explored ideas of sex and gender in fascinating and visually beautiful ways,” she explained.
Co-curator Nancy Thebaut, Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Oxford, highlighted how the exhibition builds upon decades of academic research. “Spectrum of Desire builds upon decades of work by scholars who have pioneered and refined the study of gender and sexuality in medieval Europe. We are excited to share their important work, as well as our own findings, with visitors.”
Through its evocative artworks, Spectrum of Desire encourages modern viewers to see medieval Europe not as prudish or static, but as a world alive with emotional complexity and imaginative freedom.
Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages is now open at The Met Cloisters and will run through March 29, 2026. Click here for more details.
There is also the book, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages, by Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut, which you can get from Yale University Press.
Top Image: Aquamanile in the Form of Phyllis and Aristotle, Netherlandish, late 14th or early 15th century. Copper alloy, 12 ¾ x 7 x 15½ in. (32.5 x 17.9 x 39.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.1416)
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