After a year-long conservation and renovation project, the Toledo Museum of Art’s Cloister Gallery will present a wider range of the cultural heritage of the Middle Ages when it reopens on December 18.

In addition to a complete reinstallation of works on view, the project entailed the comprehensive cleaning of the gallery’s three medieval arcades and Venetian wellhead, removing centuries of accumulated dirt; the conservation of three stained-glass windows and other works of art that have not been on view in the gallery for decades; and new casework, lighting and security.

The gallery is home to one of the finest collections of medieval art in North America.

“The Cloister Gallery is one of the most popular and evocative spaces at TMA and is known nationwide for bringing the Middle Ages to life through its collections and display,” said Adam Levine, museum director and CEO.

“The reinstallation of this beloved gallery is part of the museum’s strategic efforts to tell a more accurate and inclusive world history. In so doing, we hope to instill a sense of belonging for all of our visitors.”

The gallery represents a unique assemblage of three medieval arcades composed of capitals and columns from different monasteries in southern France.

In 1926, the third museum director Blake-More Godwin envisioned a cloister-like gallery that combined Romanesque and Gothic architecture to display the medieval collection.

The museum secured its first set of historiated capitals from St. Pons-de-Thomieres in 1929, followed by a colonnade possibly from the Cistercian abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Pontaut a year later.

The gallery was dedicated in 1933, and in 1934 the museum acquired and installed a third arcade, attributed to the 12th-century Cuxa workshop active in the environs of Perpignan, France.

Among the approximately 100 remarkable artworks featured in the space will be sacred and everyday objects from across the medieval world, including a gilded bronze standing Buddha from around 530, blownglass vessels with Jewish symbols from Jerusalem, a mosque lamp from Mamluk Egypt, a 13th-century German reliquary embedded with a carved Carolingian rock crystal, frescoes of saints from 12th and 13th century Catalonia, ivory caskets with scenes from medieval romances, and a 14th century Sultanate Mihrab from India.