New York - An Italian 15th-century half-moon sculpture of the Archangel Michael crashed to the floor of New York's Metropolitan Museum, but officials said it can be repaired, media reports said Wednesday. The glazed blue-and-white terracotta relief sculpture by Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525) "came loose from metal mounts" and fell to a stone floor sometime early Tuesday morning, the museum said in a statement on its website.
"Preliminary inspection indicates that the relief has not been irrevocably harmed and that it can be repaired and again presented to the public," the museum said.
The 157-by-89-centimetre framed lunette had been mounted at its current location since 1996, above a doorway in the Met's European sculpture and decorative arts gallery.
The sculpture, showing St Michael dressed in armor and holding a sword and the scales of justice, was commissioned about 1475 for the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Faenza, a small town between Bologna and Ravenna.
When the church was dismantled around 1798, the sculpture was bought by private collectors. The museum acquired it in 1960.
The Met, which said it routinely inspects its pedestals and wall mounts,would investigate the cause of the accident and also initiate a "reinvigorated museum-wide examination" of all of its mountings.
