Adam, ca. 1490–95, Tullio Lombardo, Italian. Marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1936

Luke Syson |The Met’s First Man: Lombardo’s Adam Restored

On October 6, 2002, shortly after closing time, the plinth supporting Tullio Lombardo’s great marble Adam, arguably the most important piece of Quattrocento statuary in America, buckled and the statue fell to the ground, shattering into innumerable pieces. Now, 12 years later, its painstaking restoration is complete, and it has been put back on show in a specially built gallery. This talk will explore its original meaning and context as part of a brilliantly designed wall-tomb in Venice, and its new context at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You’ll discover what went into its restoration and the meanings, both old and new, signaled by its new display.

Luke Syson joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2012 as the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Curator in Charge of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. Before joining the Met, Syson was curator of Italian Painting before 1500 and head of research at the National Gallery, London. While at the National Gallery, he curated “Renaissance Siena: Art for a City,” and in 2011 he organized the groundbreaking “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.”

$10; $5 MIA members, free for members of the Decorative Arts, Textiles & Sculpture Affinity Group. To register, call (612) 870-6323 or reserve online.

Adam, ca. 1490–95, Tullio Lombardo, Italian. Marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1936