The Cloisters - History

History

The museum and adjacent park, which incorporate four acres (16,000 m²), were created through an endowment grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who also donated the majority of his medieval art collection to the project. Much of this art collection came from George Grey Barnard, an American sculptor and collector of medieval art, who had already established a medieval-art museum near his home in Fort Washington.

After Rockefeller purchased Barnard's entire collection, he gave the collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Barnard's collection, combined with a number of pieces from Rockefeller's own collection (including the Unicorn tapestries), became the centerpiece for The Cloisters. Rockefeller subsequently purchased more than 65 acres (260,000 m2) of land north of Barnard's museum with the intention of converting it into a public park and site for the new museum. Rockefeller also bought and donated several hundred acres of the New Jersey Palisades to the State of New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson River to preserve the view for the museum.

The museum buildings were designed by Charles Collens the architect of New York City's Riverside Church who reconstructed the cloister elements salvaged from Europe by simplifying and merging the various medieval styles. In 1988, the Treasury gallery within The Cloisters, containing objects used for liturgical celebrations, personal devotions, and secular uses, was renovated. Other galleries were refurbished in 1999.