The 15th-century alabaster statues - considered treasures of medieval Europe - have never before left the city of Dijon, where they march perpetually around the base of the tomb of John the Fearless and his wife Margaret of Bavaria.

Now they can be seen walking two-by-two down a plain catwalk in the heart of the Met in the exhibition The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy.

Carved over a 25-year-period by Jean de la Huerta and Antoine le Moiturier, each statue represents a mourner - mostly ecclesiastical figures such as a bishop, a choirboy and rows of monks from the Carthusian order.