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Literally Breaking! Fifteenth-Century Terra-cotta Sculpture Falls Off Wall at Met

  • 7/1/08 at 1:40 PM
metropolitan museum broken sculpture saint michael andrea della robbia

The sculpture, in better days.Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to a press release, sometime "late last night or early this morning," the fifteenth-century terra-cotta relief of Saint Michael the Archangel by Andrea della Robbia pictured above fell off the wall above a doorway and hit the floor in the Metropolitan Museum's European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries. The sculpture is, apparently, not irrevocably harmed, but seriously — this is the kind of thing that happens at our apartment, not at the freaking Met. What if that had happened during the day, and it landed not on the floor but on your head? We guess the fact that it's St. Michael would mean you'd be guaranteed to go to Heaven, but still. We hope whoever the incoming director is, he or she is ready to answer the city's demand: Is the Met a death trap???

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