visiting the cloisters on a sunday morning with our visitor from switzerland

 we woke to another beautiful cool morning.

 all is grey and brown with the world.

reading her book. she can't put it down. (how does j. k. rowling do it?! book eight seems to be just as intriguing as books one through seven.)

 a hint of steel blue on the river . . 

grisaille panels from normandy, probably around 1270. grisaille refers to an ornamental design, sans figures, of black lines painted on colorless glass. the cistercian order banned the use of colored glass in 1134. by the late 13th century, limited amounts of color were being introduced, as you can see here with the deep blue and red glass.

greg loves coming up here also. chanda bemoaned the potted plants on the wall. she would much prefer to have more seating area. i'm sure the nuns and monks did too . . for when they read their harry potter books.

maybe she should be meditating?

this panel is from munich, 1507. it is done with silver stain and vitreous paint (a mixture of ground glass and pigment oxide) on glass. mary's halo is inscribed with the greeting of the angel gabriel: ava maria gratia plena dominus tecum. 

the man's name who commissioned it is written along the bottom: hans schwinli (vo münche 1507).

 this little christ child fellow is carved from willow and the sign read that he would adorn the alter at christmastime. nuns would also receive such sculptures from their families after taking monastic vows. he was carved in 1470 in ulm, from the workshop of michel erhart. the paint is original except for the green turf upon which he stands.

 we made our way to the herbal garden . .  to the quince trees. they are getting a bit old and don't bear as much fruit as they used to.

the lime tree . . 

 with small ripening limes . . 

 here is marcus, our visitor from switzerland. he is a friend of morgana's austrian family and grew up in pfunds, österreich. he lives now in zurich with his wife and three small sons. he's hoping to get a dog but he said his wife hasn't been enthusiastic. we suggested he should say that she could pick the pup from the litter and choose the name. of course the dog he would like is a burnese mountain dog . . they are not small! i think he has a lot of persuading to do.

one of my favorite parts of the day was having tea and coffee at the museum cafe along with our home brought hard boiled eggs and granola bars. we sat at the very back of the cafe, on the right; not far from where the man is walking in the photo above.

 before we sat down, chanda had disappeared and we couldn't find her . .

ah ha! almost done with her book. (she had no idea i was standing there.)

 another lime tree . . 

 a small potted one this time.

a pot of dittany of crete.

 on the garden tour . .

 beautiful stained glass windows which the tour guide pointed out to us, depicting saint dorothea holding a vase of thornless roses. the symbolism of flowers was an important part of medieval life which we don't realize in the 21st century; at least not me.

 discussing the quince tree . . 

 and the four different beds of the herbal garden: plants for medicinal purposes; plants for painting and dyeing; plants for magic and alchemy; plants for culinary use.

 marcus noticed a marmet, or groundhog on the park lawn, below the cloister. we were surprised as we hadn't expected there to be groundhogs in fort tryon park, which surrounds the cloisters.

i thought i had snapped a picture of what morgana was sketching . .  (i think this is lythrum, or purple loosestrife).

but she had actually drawn something else which had been hidden beneath the lythrum.

after our visit with marcus at the cloisters, we drove him to penn station to catch his train to philadelphia where he was going for a conference. we then started uptown to drop chanda off at her babysitting job but she was incredibly cantankerous so we had to find her some food . . which we did at a pret on eighth avenue. she was happy then.

morgana drove greg and i home.