New Greek and Roman Galleries Exhibition Dates: Opened April 20, 2007
Director Philippe de Montebello offers a behind-the-scenes look at some of the treasures featured in the spectacular New Greek and Roman Galleries, opening April 20.
Episode Date: February 5, 2007
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Episode Transcript
Philippe de Montebello: There is no event in the upcoming season that is so defining for the life of this institution, for New York, and for art lovers around the world than the completion of the New Greek and Roman Galleries, involving the installation of thousands of works of classical art from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Here is a brief preview of those galleries, which will open to the public on April 20, 2007.
Essentially a "museum within the museum" for the Metropolitan's world-renowned collection of Hellenistic, Etruscan, South Italian, and Roman art, the new galleries will completely transform a space that was used for decades as the Museum's restaurant, but that was originally designed by the renowned architects McKim, Mead and White in 1912 as galleries for Roman art.
Its centerpiece is the spectacular Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, a monumental peristyle area for the display of Hellenistic and Roman art with a soaring two-story atrium. This colossal statue of the young Hercules, a lion skin draped over his arm, will be there, along with many other works, including our great Badminton sarcophagus, decorated with more than 40 figures-including Dionysus, the god of wine, shown riding his panther-and the seasons.
Here you will meet, face to face, the emperors of Imperial Rome: Augustus, Caligula, the young Nero, Antoninus Pius, Caracalla; and a pantheon of great figures from ancient times: Herodotus,
