Thomas Hoving (1931–2009)

Thomas Hoving's very personal account of how clever he was to acquire a medieval English walrus ivory crucifix for the Cloisters in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where he was a rising star. Very full of his own feelings and his intrigues with officials in his own and other museums and the cross's then owner, a dubious Yugoslav. Displays his remarkable ignorance of the Passion story and related materials as told in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which he apparently had to teach himself de novo to understand the sculptures on the cross. Interesting though depressing interpretation linking anti-Jewish images and texts on the cross to the anti-Jewish policies of a leading monk of Bury St. Edmunds, who may have commissioned it to celebrate his victory over an allegedly corrupt pro-Jewish faction. Has some nice detailed pictures of the carvings.… (more)