365 Days at the Met

August 30, 2019 Gallery 524 contains furniture, decorative objects, and paintings from the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. The display makes clear the transition over the course of the century from the more exuberant, curvilinear rococo style to the more sober, geometrical Neoclassical style.  Again, I find more to be admired than liked in the gallery. There is just too much gilding for my taste. i chose today's object because it raises difficult questions for me. It's a perfume burner, about 24 inches high from the base to the top and one of a pair made around 1785 of gilt and patinated bronze. The receptacle in which the perfume was placed rests on the heads of two seated female satyrs. I never knew that satyrs came in both sexes, but these have female heads and wear, on top, tunics that are draped below their bared breasts. Below their waists, they have the fleece and hooves of goars.  God knows I don't want to be a prude, and I have seen plenty of images of nu...

August 29, 2019 Gallery 523 is known as the Lauzon Room because its wall paneling comes from the Hotel Lauzon on the Ile Saint-Louis, although its 18th century furnishings were assembled from a variety of locations. This very grand space, about 35 feet on a side, with high ceilings and dim lighting, is furnished with a very grand bed, topped by a high canopy elaborately carved  of walnut and beech  and then gilded But, as I read, such a room was not intended for sleeping. Instead, it was  used as a reception room for aristocratic callers when they visited for such occasions as the birth of a child. One item I note is a cloth cover for a firescreen. It's embroidered with the letters A and M and turns out to be a copy of a firescreen cover embroidered by Marie Antoinette herself for the royal chateau at Saint Cloud. (I never knew there was a royal chateau at Saint Cloud; I guess the royal homes at the Louvre, Versailles, and Fontainebleau didn't suffice.)  I do...

August 26, 2019 The gallery numbers, I discover, make absolutely no sense in terms of chronology. Gallery 522 focuses on 18th century France, while galleries dealing with the French Renaissance have numbers in the 540s. C'est la vie. It will be interesting to think about whether later styles represent a continuation of earlier ones or a break from them. Both, I suspect. Gallery 522 itself is a very grand space with high ceilings and ornately paneled walls. It is dimly lit by wall sconces and candelabras holding candles that emit a yellowish light, I suppose to conjure up the atmosphere of a great but windowless room in an 18th century palace. (S ome of the lights flicker, as if the flames were real- can they be gas flames?)  The furnishings include marble-topped console tables bearing bronze statuettes depicting the labors of Hercules, two Meissen  covered vases,  a painting of Louis XV at age 5 wrapped in an  ermine  robe and seated on a throne, and a p...

August 23, 2019 At my last visit to the museum, I went to scout out the seating arrangements in the next galleries, to see whether I needed to bring my new portable cane-seat. (I do.)  I discovered that galleries 509-519 are closed for renovation, while gallery 520 is decorated with large photos of various objects that are presumably on exhibit in the closed galleries. It's not worth writing about photographs - I'll wait to see the real thing. So today's gallery is gallery 521. It's a gallery that many people walk through, because it's on the direct - perhaps only - route to the cafeteria. But not that many people stop to look at what's in the gallery itself, and that's a shame. To me, this is one of the most extraordinary, worthwhile displays I've seen at the Met. The exhibit concerns the relative value of different objects found in Northern Europe and mostly made in the 16th century. Determining relative value is a challenge because at...

August 21, 2019 Gallery 508 centers on Italian decorative arts of the 18th century. The wall placard describes, and in the furnishings on display one can see, the transition from the Rococo to the Neo-Classical style, with its more restrained, rectilinear lines and simpler ornamentation. I suddenly realize why there are so many rooms -well over 50 - devoted to European sclpture and decorative arts: because so many wealthy people donated their prize possessions to the Met and expected them to be put out on exhibit, so that visitors could admire both the donors' taste and their generosity.  So, for example, I note that among the objects shown in this gallery,  Douglas Dillon and Lewis Untermeyer gave the museum small soft-paste porcelain figures made at the Capodimonte Manufactory near Naples, and Bernard Baruch donated  an 18th century Venetian painting. I'm surprised to see a hanukkiah and a magnificent silver Torah crown and finials; one was purchased with fun...

August 19, 2019 Gallery 507 is described as a bed chamber from the Ca' Sagredo dating from 1718, although as a sign in the previous gallery explains, the room might well have functioned as a reception room rather than a bedroom. It's certainly impressive enough in its proportions to be a reception room -- perhaps 40' X 25', with a raised area holding the bed along with an armchair with a gilded wood frame and maroon velvet (?) back and seat. The walls are covered with a patterned silk that appears in the dim light (there are three leaded glass windows) to be of a tan or perhaps light olive color. The bed has a curving Baroque headboard and is covered with a patterned rose-colored silk spread; the same, or a similar, fabric appears on the headboard. Flanking the door are two identical mirrors whose gilded frames are shaped like shields, which hang over two identical marble console tables with curving fronts and gilded legs. The room also has a tall painted secret...

August 16, 2019 I'll confess that, aside from the studiolo, many of these galleries are completely unfamiliar to me, and today I visit a part of the Met I don't recall ever seeing before. Gallery 506 turns out to be, basically, a pass-through en route to other galleries. It also contains a few  items from 18th century Venice and functions as an anteroom to a bedchamber taken from the Sagredo  palace on the Grand Canal ("Ca' Sagredo," I hear an Italian man tell his companion authoritatively).  Over the door leading to the bedroom is the family's coat of arms surrounded by extravagantly Baroque "cresting" (ornamentation attached to a roof, cornice, or parapet, I learn) of gilded wood, topped by a rearing horse that reminds me of the ancient Greek horses at San Marco.  Today's object is the prow of an 18th century gondola, perhaps 4 1/2 feer long, fashioned of partly gilded iron in the form of a doge's cap. It's elegantly slim and co...

September 14, 2019 Gallery 505 is the "rich room" or "best room," used for the reception  of important guests, from a "schlossli" (little castle) in Flims, Switzerland. Acquired by the Met in 1906, it may have seemed like a good find then, but I wonder whether the museum would make the same purchase now. The room, whose walls and impressive ceiling  are completely paneled in dark woods except for four lead-paned windows with stained glass insets, is  so dark that it doesn't invite close viewing, or lingering. Built around 1682-1684 and measuring about 20 or 25 feet on a side, the room seems to combine local with more cosmopolitan decorative elements. Among the latter is a very large and showy faience stove painted with scenes from the Bible (I recognize the binding of Isaac), images of saints, and ornamental masks and fruits. Today's object is a caryatid, perhaps 24 inches tall, whose turban (not to mention the explanatory sign) identifies ...

August 12, 2019 Gallery 504 features seven Venetian and other northern Italian sculptures dating from 1425-1525.  I learn, that, in fact,  the most prominent sculptors came to Venice from Lombardy. The works on display generally depict religious subjects - Adam, Saint Catherine of Siena, angels, etc. - but they are done in classical style, with marked contrapposto, elaborate drapery, etc.  I read that the Adam, who is shown holding an apple and nude except for a fig leaf, is the most important Venetian sculpture outside of Venice. It came from the tomb of a Vendramin doge and was part of a larger arrangement of sculptures. How did it get separated from its companion pieces, I wonder, and where are the latter?   What I don't read but hear from two guides who pass by is that the sculpture toppled from its original wooden pedestal in 2002 and broke into 28 major pieces and hundreds of small fragments! The restoration project took over a decade and i...

August 7, 2019 Gallery 503 is a huge, rather dimly lit room that houses a number of Italian Renaissance treasures.  A massive table of pietra dura that came from the Palazzo Farnese would scarcely fit in my living room; here, while it occupies a good deal of space, it doesn't fill even half the gallery. I learn many new things.  For one,   the first porcelain to be manufactured in Europe was made in 16th-century Florence under the sponsorship of Grand Duke Cosimo dei Medici; its blue and white palette was meant to imitate Chinese models. For another, the pope induced Flemish tapestry weavers to set up a workshop in Rome.  I note two tapestries, copies of lost originals, that were commissioned by Pope Leo X and follow a design of Raphael. The putti depicted on the tapestries are meant to evoke a classical golden age, although today, it's hard for me to look at them without thinking of the pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church.  And I also learn ...

August  5, 2019 I've walked past Gallery 502, which is right next to the Gubbio studiolo, innumerable times but never looked in until today. The gallery is devoted to French church decoration between 1530 and 1550. Its contents come from two principal places: the "intarsia" (inlaid) altarpiece and wainscoting from the Chapel of the Chateau de la Bastie d' Urfe, near Lyon, and the stained glass windows from the choir of the Benedictine priory church of Saint Fermin in Flavigny-sur-Moselle, in Lorraine.  Both the intarsia and the stained glass, I think,  reflect the Italian influence. Indeed, the wooden panels were commissioned by Claude D'Urfe', who, according to the descriptive text, became interested in Italian art when he served as the ambassador of the French king in Rome.  While some of the inlaid panels have abstract and geometric designs, others depict landscapes, architectural settings, or religious scenes, with darker woods used to create ill...

August 2, 2019 Gallery 501, the Gubbio studiolo, has long been one of my favorite spaces at the Met,  a place to which I always bring visitors. I never fail to marvel at how convincing the trompe l'oeil inlay is. You always think you could throw open the cabinet doors or, especially,  sit on the benches.  The studiolo, which is about 15 feet long and maybe 8 feet wide, with a little recess, was built for Federico di Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, between 1478 and 1482. It's wild to think that such a luxurious room was installed at Gubbio, which wasn't even Federico's principal residence; in fact, there was a similar studiolo at Urbino. The objects represented in the cabinets give evidence of the duke's interests and accomplishments: a sword, a scepter, books, musical instruments (a drum, a flute, a lyre, a tambourine), an hourglass, a compass, an astrolabe, a cross.... It gives fresh meaning to the term "Renaissance man." It also makes you thin...