Birds in Art: A Collection of Stunning Works Inspired by Our Feathered Friends

Birds are one of the most popular subjects for artists, as they can be both beautiful and fascinating creatures. Many artists have been inspired by birds, and have created some stunning works of art featuring them.Birds can make for very interesting and detailed paintings, as they have a wide variety of colors and patterns on their feathers. They can also be depicted in flight, which can add a sense of movement and energy to a painting. Whether they are depicted realistically or abstractly, birds can add a lot of beauty and interest to a work of art. The Metropolitan Museum has a number of bird-related artworks. These artworks provide insight into how different cultures have represented birds over time.

Enameled and Gilded Bottle

    This bottle is remarkable because it is large and delicate.
    Few such large or painterly examples of enameled glass are known.
    The polychrome phoenix on the neck soars above the central scene of mounted warriors wielding maces, swords, and bows.

Our Lady of Valvanera

    This painting depicts the miraculous discovery of the image of Our Lady of Valvanera by the repentant thief-turned-hermit Nuño Oñez, who kneels beside it in adoration.
    Hidden in the hollow of an oak tree since the time of the Muslim invasion of Spain, the location of the sacred image was revealed to the hermit in a vision.
    The fresh water spring that flows from beneath the tree and the bees that frame the opening in the trunk signal the hidden location.

Panel from a Rectangular Box

    This panel, carved from a single piece of ivory in a twice-repeating pattern, once adorned the side of a rectangular casket.
    The complexity of its decoration as well as the attention to details, such as the eyes of humans and animals, which were drilled and filled with minute quartz stones, demonstrate the refinement and the accomplishment of the caliphal ivory-carving workshop.
    The panel is carved from a single piece of ivory in a twice-repeating pattern.

Fragment from a Two-Sided Sanctuary Screen with Birds Eating Grapes

    This fragment was probably part of the waist-high screen that separated the congregation (in the nave of the church) from the clergy (in the sanctuary).
    This side would have faced the congregation and shows birds eating grapes, a symbolic allusion to the Eucharist.
    The fragment is made of limestone and is decorated with a relief of birds eating grapes.

"Great Hornbill", Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

    The emperor Jahangir's memoirs record many of the animals he encountered while on his annual peregrinations, and the reasons he wanted studies of them to be painted.

Barberini Cabinet

    The arms are those of a Barberini cardinal, probably Maffeo Barberini (1568 - 1644), who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623.
    The scenes from Aesop's Fables are after woodcut illustrations in the edition by Francisco Tuppo published in Naples in 1485.
    The arms are those of a Barberini cardinal, probably Maffeo Barberini (1568 - 1644), who became Pope Urban VIII in 1623.

Belt Buckle

    This object comes from the Vermand Treasure, the most richly appointed barbarian-warrior grave ever found.
    The grave was likely that of an auxiliary soldier stationed in the Roman province of Gaul.
    It also contained a shield, parts of which of which are on view in the Arms and Armor Galleries.