Helen Evans: Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Philippe de Montebello and curator Alisa LaGamma discuss the Museum's African Power Figure. Their conversation was recorded in connection with the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Philippe de Montebello: We are standing in front of this extraordinarily powerful—in fact, it's called a "power figure"—Alisa LaGamma, the curator of African Art, and myself, and you, our listener. And what is fascinating among many, many things about this piece is how it in many ways redefines the term "beauty" for us.

Your instinct is to recoil, because it is a terrifying object. At the same time, it is so captivating you don't quite know what to do. And the reason why I think you have this reaction to the piece is that between the intent of the artist and the execution, there is no slack.

He wanted to create a figure, a cult figure, a reliquary, to precisely—to awe and to frighten, in a way, into a kind of submission to the gods. And he, the artist, has succeeded magisterially. And Alisa LaGamma will tell us a little bit more and with greater precision about just why this was created; what it is. Alisa?

Alisa LaGamma: Well, one of the fascinating things about our reaction to this work is that in many ways, as Philippe pointed out, our experience of it in the present is very much what a Congo individual would have experienced standing before it in the kind of community that this work was a focal point for.

The author of this work intended it to be a deterrent, a work that would inspire respect for authority and social conduct that adhered to a code of behavior. So that members of the community would feel that there was a vigilant and omniscient force that was looking over the affairs of the community, and that there would be consequences to pay were certain boundaries overstepped.

One of the things that I also think, on an aesthetic level, is very interesting to know about this kind of a work is that the sculptor who was presented with this challenge was giving figurative form, was personifying, an abstract force of jurisprudence. And he brought all his talent and imagination to bear on rendering that subject as a very vital and dynamic presence.

Then some of the other elements that really elicit visceral responses from us—like all of that very intense hardware that projects from the torso—that is all the cumulative use of this work over the decades, where members of the community came before this work and cemented different kinds of agreements and treaties and laws.

Philippe de Montebello: Oh, so when the sculptor had finished the work, it was smooth. It is the congregation, so to speak, over time that banged these nails and these things into it. That, of course, is part of what gives it so much life. One almost wonders if it's looking back at us, staring with these eyes that look into eternity out of—what is it, shell?

Alisa LaGamma: It's actually a ceramic that has been—

Philippe de Montebello: A ceramic, yeah.

Alisa LaGamma: —embedded into the wood, to real—

Philippe de Montebello: Almost begging for us to place our own imprint into it. One hopes that it has been neutralized in our galleries.

Alisa LaGamma: There are over four hundred elements of hardware, of different kinds of nails and blades, that were pounded into this figure, and each one of those represents a particular case that was brought before this figure.

Philippe de Montebello: It's like an ex-voto in a church. Tell me, what is that gaping hole in the stomach?

Alisa LaGamma: Well, the figure is produced by the sculptor as a vessel, a receptacle for this force. And the way that the ritual specialist, who is handed the completed sculpture, fills this vessel with its spiritual contents is that he collects special ingredients that are considered to attract the force into the figure.

One of the major materials that is appropriate in this case is earth taken from ancestral burial sites, mixed in with other things. And then the receptacle that is in the abdominal cavity is sealed.

Now, our figure has been emptied of all of that matter. So, in a sense it's been—

Philippe de Montebello: That's rather reassuring, isn't it?

Alisa LaGamma: It's been desacralized, probably intentionally, when it was taken out of the region.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, quite clearly this is quite a departure from the Grecian, classical ideal figure that our Acquisitions Committee is accustomed to see. Yet they expended a colossal amount of money for this major object of African art, and I think that is testimony to how compelling the artist has been in conveying precisely what you described, the function of the piece.

Thank you, Alisa, for your insight.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Aimee Dixon: Hi. I'm Aimee Dixon, Assistant Museum Educator, and coordinator of the High School Internship Program. As a part of the summer internship program, this podcast offers high school students an opportunity to share their vision of this institution through their eyes and voices.

Angus Armstrong: Hi. I'm high school intern Angus Armstrong.

Ruth Barral: And I'm Ruth Barral, also a high school intern.

Angus Armstrong: During our six weeks interning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, we created the podcast you are about to hear. It is inspired by a unique moment in the history of the Museum: Phillipe de Montebello, current director, is ending his thirty-one-year tenure. While reflecting upon this transition, we listened to speeches by Mr. de Montebello, researched the Met's history, and collected personal stories from staff members and interns.

Although The Metropolitan Museum of Art is known for telling stories through its exhibitions and collections, the Museum boasts a majestic story of its own. That story is a compilation of the five thousand years of history kept alive through the objects the Museum houses, of the staff who maintains these collections, and of the visitors who come to enjoy them every day.

Ruth Barral: Philippe de Montebello has played a crucial role in shaping the life of the Museum. During this time, he has embraced change, making it constant priority to keep the Met ever evolving and improving. Jeff Daly, Senior Design Advisor to the Director for Capital and Special Projects, elaborates on this concept.

Jeff Daly: Everything has to change. You know, every institution, if it's the size and scale of a place like the Met—it's changing by itself, whether Philippe is here or not. And I think he would be the first to say it keeps changing all the time and you have to go with those changes. If you're lucky you can steer those changes, or, if not, then you go with them and work with them.

Ruth Barral: People often view the Museum as an institution that has been untouched for years, but as Jeff Daly explains, internal change is frequent.

Jeff Daly: Everybody says, "Well, this is a permanent gallery." But then Philippe always says, "Well, permanent; yeah, right. That's ten, twelve years in museum life." Museums always want to change their galleries to update the collections.

Angus Armstrong: Under Mr. de Montebello's directorship the Museum has doubled in size, acquired eighty-two thousand objects into its permanent collection, and greatly improved its educational programs, thereby enhancing the experience of a twenty-first-century museum visit.

Ruth Barral: Every year people from all over the world come to view the cultures held inside the Met. These brief encounters wandering through the galleries or studying an ancient sculpture are the individual and unique experiences that make the Met such an exceptional place. As high school intern Maya Peña said:

Maya Peña: Anytime you come—I feel like you could be working here for thirty years, and you can turn a corner, look at a piece differently, or, you know, find something that you've never seen before, or just even go into one of the new exhibitions and see art you've never seen before. It's just constantly changing and evolving, and there's new things you're going to find every time you come to the Museum.

Angus Armstrong: Dan Solomon, high school intern, expands on the evolution of the Met.

Dan Solomon: Being at the Museum, it's something that is really a constantly evolving experience, because you see the Museum from the outside and I guess it's four square blocks, approximately, and you think, "Well, how much could this possibly contain?" But the Museum has a database of millions of art pieces and artifacts from five thousand years of history. And when you're encountering that it's an incredibly overwhelming experience to just be the viewer of history and be the viewer of this constantly evolving sort of pattern of history.

Ruth Barral: After working at the Met, one comes to view the Museum in a very different way, whether it's the discovery of a new office or the experience of ambling through a quieted museum after hours.

Angus Armstrong: One thing that struck me especially was the way in which there are these sort of parallel universes. There's the galleries with all the visitors in it, and then there's also these doors that I never knew existed that lead to this other world of, you know, educators, curators, and the like that are sort of working to make everyone's experience better here at the Museum. And you never really got to appreciate that as a visitor, but as an intern I really see how these worlds are able to work together and create a better experience for both sides.

Ruth Barral: Vardan Gattani, another high school intern, agrees.

Vardan Gattani: There was a door in my office where I sit, that I thought was just a storage closet, and one day a person came out of the door and I was in complete shock. I was silenced. And I had no idea there was a whole other section of offices behind my own office that were completely hidden to me, and I would have never known unless someone had walked through the door. And it's just those kind of hidden surprises that the Museum holds that are pretty exciting.

Angus Armstrong: Jeff Daly relates his own story.

Jeff Daly: It amazes me that the Greek and Roman galleries, which I was involved in designing, are still popular with people. I mean, it's still popular with me. I walk in there and I just breathe a sigh of relief every time I go in there. It's my haven in the Museum to just go in there, especially in the morning or at night when everybody is gone, because that's how I like it the most. It was a hard time to let go of it and have it open up to the public; it was "That's not fair!" But, you know, it's a kind of thing, if there are special moments in places like this, that's what keeps the Met alive for the future.

Angus Armstrong: Memories of the Museum take many shapes. You probably have some of your own. High school intern Ariel Patterson shares a personal connection she has to a painting in the Met.

Ariel Patterson: In 2004 I came to the Met to do a museum report for the first time for high school. And I chose Manet's Boating and I sat there for about four hours, just staring at it in, like, awe, and everybody started to fade away and it was just me and the painting. And then through those four hours I came up with a drawing and really understood how much an artist puts into his painting. And now I can go back to that gallery and still get the same feeling of just me and that painting.

Ruth Barral: It's unique moments and memories like these that keep people coming back to the Met. And as long as the Museum remains open, it will continue to attract visitors from all areas of the world. As the new director steps up, he or she will be faced with the task of maintaining these high standards. As Trustee John Rosenwald stated:

John Rosenwald: No institution stays the same. Institutions get better or they get worse. So the role of philanthropy here is to see to it that the Metropolitan Museum only gets better.

Angus Armstrong: It is the continuous process of re-evaluation and renovation that enables the Museum to evolve, making room for a new future and new ways to experience the past.

Aimee Dixon: This podcast was produced by summer 2008 high school interns Julia Howard and David Manujkan, as well as Audree Anid, Ximena Aristizabal, Angus Armstrong, Ruth Barral, Genesis Crespo, Alexander Erb, Vardan Gattani, Amanda Manocherian, Ariel Patterson, Maya Peña, Daniel Solomon, Elizabeth Webster, and Tahra Yien.

This has been an Antenna Audio Production.

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Helen Evans: In July, 2008, Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recorded this conversation with Everett Fahy about one of the Museum's masterworks: a portrait by Peter Paul Rubens. This painting was included in the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions."

Philippe de Montebello: I'm standing here in front of this magisterial work by Peter Paul Rubens with the chairman of the European Paintings Department. And there's a great deal to say about this work. We will try to condense what one can say about such a consummate masterpiece to a few words. But it's important to note that it is certainly one of the grandest, one of the greatest portraits by Rubens anywhere, whether it be in the great European museums—even in Flanders, Antwerp, or Brussels, or in London, Paris, or Berlin.

And it is a picture, at the same time, that, because of its scale, because of its subject matter—it represents the artist, his young wife, his child—is one of the most touching and one of the most personal works by a man so accustomed in his role as the grand ambassador of Flanders of painting huge political cycles, such as the one in the Luxembourg in Paris, or many, many commissions of mythological and religious subjects.

It also is an opportunity to point out once again, on the credit line, the name of Charles and Jayne Wrightsman, who have been certainly among the greatest benefactors and donors of truly remarkable works of art to this institution. The story of this acquisition is rather fascinating because it was one of two pictures. And, well, I will let Everett Fahy tell us a little bit how we were able to acquire this one and what happened to the other and perhaps a bit more about the picture itself.

Everett Fahy: Well, there actually were two large panels by Rubens, two portraits in the Rothschild Collection, when this picture came on the market. And, in order to get an export license—

Philippe de Montebello: From where?

Everett Fahy: —from France, one portrait of the woman you see in this picture, Rubens's second wife, was given to the Louvre. And this picture came on the market. And it was first offered to the Frick Collection and was not bought. And fortunately, Charles and Jayne Wrightsman purchased it and then three years later gave it to the Met.

Philippe de Montebello: We should also say, yes, the Rothschilds in a sense were compelled to give one to the Louvre in order to allow the export of the other. But how did the one get into the Louvre? As I recall, it was the curator of paintings, Pierre Rosenberg, who had the choice of the two.

Everett Fahy: Oh, yes, yeah.

Philippe de Montebello: And, there are, of course, those who say he picked the best. And some of us—notwithstanding the beautiful little carriage in the other picture—who think that because of the trio represented here and the greater warmth, that we actually ended up with the picture that, had we been given the choice, I think we would have picked. What do you think, Everett?

Everett Fahy: Oh, absolutely, the Met would've picked this one because it contains the story of Rubens's life: his second marriage to a sixteen-year-old girl, Hélène Fourment, which was a very happy union. They lived—it was the last ten years of Rubens's life and Hélène had five children with Rubens. In this portrait you can see him and her walking in a garden with the firstborn.

The painting is really—it's an amazing picture to me because it's a family portrait. And up until this time those were rather stiff affairs with people sort of standing or seated in rigid poses. And here we see all the activity, the people going for a morning walk in the garden of Rubens's house in Antwerp, which you can still see today.

Philippe de Montebello: And that wonderfully touching, beautiful gesture, almost central in the picture, of the two hands; Rubens holding up the hand of Hélène Fourment, who is, I believe, holding the strap that keeps the child in tow; the wonderful gaze.

And notwithstanding the black color of the dress, this is a colorful picture and it comes through in the swarthy tones of the face of Rubens himself and the much paler tones of that of Hélène and the amplitude of her bosom, and the playfulness of the child looking up at his mother.

The whole thing really resonates as a marvelous picture of a happy family. And the macaw, the bouquet of flowers, that sort of coda of explosive color on the upper right that concludes the picture. All in all, a great masterpiece.

Everett Fahy: One thing you don't see, looking at the picture today, which we discovered here at the Met when we examined it with X-rays, is that Rubens actually changed the picture radically. Initially he showed his head six inches lower looking out directly at us, his eyes engaged with the viewer. And instead he raised his figure and then turned his head so he looks with this amorous expression at his young bride.

Philippe de Montebello: Indeed. Everett, this has been very rewarding to look at this picture with you. I hope you've enjoyed it as well and that you will continue to look at the picture, because it is prolonged looking that is so richly rewarding when one looks at truly great masterpieces.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Narrator: Welcome to Story Time at the Met. Just sit back, relax, and get ready to listen. Our storyteller for this episode is the director of the Metropolitan Museum, Philippe de Montebello. Take it away, Philippe!

Philippe de Montebello: This story comes from the sacred lore of the Hindu religion. It's one of many tales about Krishna, a god who came to Earth in human form.

Long, long ago in the land of India, Lord Krishna was born to the Princess Devaki and her husband, Vasudeva. You might expect that the young prince would grow up in comfort and safety. But Krishna faced great danger from the moment he was born. Devaki's brother was the king, King Kamsa, and he didn't want any little princes around to steal his crown. This terrible king planned to kill the baby Krishna. His parents were terrified! But they were determined to protect their boy.

Devaki and Vasudeva decided to hide Krishna until he was grown up, so they took him far from the palace, to a place where King Kamsa would never think of looking: a village of cowherds called Vrindavana. A humble couple named Nanda and Yashoda agreed to raise Krishna as their own child. With many a tear, Devaki left her baby with his foster mother, Yashoda. Then Vasudeva and Devaki went home and claimed that their boy had passed away.

Krishna grew quickly into a happy toddler. No one could resist his smiling little face. Yashoda loved him with all her heart. Krishna's favorite food was fresh, sweet butter, so Yashoda made sure she made enough butter for him to eat.

Even though Krishna was a god on earth, he was still a mischievous little boy who got into plenty of trouble.

The naughty child began going from house to house, stealing bits of butter from every home in the village. The women tried to keep him out of the butter. They put it out of the boy's reach, or they hid it away. But nothing worked. Krishna always found their butter and stole a little bit to eat.

When Yashoda found out, she scolded Krishna. "How could you take butter from other people?" she asked. "Never steal from our neighbors again."

But Krishna refused to obey Yashoda and went right back to his thieving tricks. "Enough!" cried Yashoda. "You cannot be a thief. I must teach you to behave!" But Krishna only laughed merrily.

He showed no fear, not even when Yashoda turned him over her knee and lifted her hand to spank him. Then a voice cried out, "Stop, Yashoda!" The women of the village had come to Yashoda's door, holding pots of butter. "Don't spank him," said the women. "We can't bear to see him cry. Here, take all of our butter and give it to Krishna!"

Little Krishna smiled up at Yashoda sweetly, like any little boy who's gotten away with doing something naughty. The moment she saw that smile, Yashoda's heart overflowed with pure mother's love. She hugged him tight and all was forgiven.

Years passed. Krishna grew into a young man. One day, King Kamsa heard a rumor that Krishna was alive. He summoned an evil spirit named Keshi. "Find him!" ordered the king in a fury. "Wherever he is, find him and tear him to pieces!" Then Keshi turned into a giant horse. The evil spirit tore through the countryside on horse's hooves until he reached the village of Vrindavana. There he found Krishna tending cows. Keshi raised his horse's head, bared his gigantic teeth, and galloped toward Krishna. Krishna faced the horse without a trace of fear. Just before Keshi trampled him, Krishna stuck his arm straight into the horse's throat. Keshi choked on Krishna's arm and fell dead at his feet.

Krishna became a mighty warrior who defeated the forces of evil. The next time you visit the Metropolitan Museum, look for two of my favorite sculptures in the Arts of South Asia collection: first, a rare metal figure of Yashoda nursing the infant Krishna; and second, a dramatic sculpture of Krishna battling the horse-demon Keshi.

Starting October 24, you can see these artworks in a special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum called "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions." The exhibition continues through February 1, 2009. It has been my privilege to serve as director for over thirty years. Now, as that time draws to a close, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for making these years such a rewarding experience.

NARRATOR: Thanks, Philippe. And thanks to you, our visitors, for listening to Story Time at the Met.

This has been a production of Antenna Audio.

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Helen Evans: I'm Helen Evans, curator of "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions". Here, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Joan Aruz and Director Philippe de Montebello discuss a work from the exhibition: the Striding Horned Demon.

Joan Aruz: I'm Joan Aruz, head of the Ancient Near East Department here at the Metropolitan. And I was confronted with an extraordinary opportunity last year, and that was the shocking decision made by the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo to divest itself of the art of the ancient world. And among the treasures in that collection was one piece that I had had my eye on for quite some time, and, in fact, we had rescued it from obscurity in 2003 when we brought it to join its mate. In fact, this is one of a pair of objects, a statue that came to the Metropolitan Museum as part of our "Art of the First Cities" exhibition.

So the excitement mounted as I saw this piece in the sale catalogue. And I wondered how, now, was I going to convince the director that this object, which—typical of ancient Near Eastern Art—is small, however powerful. This is an argument I always use; small, but ritually charged, probably, and a great work of art from the dawn of metal sculpture. All of these factors were true, but how could I convince the director that this would be a work that we should purchase?

I knew it was one of the greatest works that would ever come on the market. I knew it would be expensive, however; I was fearful. At any rate, I practically flew across the building. I went into Philippe's office and I showed him this piece, hoping that he would have remembered it from the 2003 exhibition.

I was not so sure. I was concerned that he wouldn't even react to it in a way that I had hoped and I was trying to get him to go to see it again. That took some convincing.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, that's true. It took a little bit of convincing, because after all, it's really not an endearing object.

I will concede that even from the photograph, it's a sculpture that seems to yeast and work itself up in its small volume and compact state. But I knew that we were talking huge numbers and, you know, we have a limited budget. In any event, I did feel that it was the right thing to do to go and actually look at the object itself.

You simply cannot buy or even consider a purchase without looking at the original. That is the difference between a simulacrum and being in the presence of a vestige of history. So I went to the auction house and I stood in front of the object. And I must say that its hardly suppressed energy was such that I felt it was going to break itself out of the vitrine. And I realized that its presence was out of all proportion to its size.

I knew—because I know this—that its rarity and the uniqueness, the ability to acquire it would simply not recur in an age in which the purchase of antiquities is something that is almost relegated to the past. And so I returned and gave the encouraging news to Joan Aruz that I thought maybe we would go after it.

But I have to say—I do this with all curators. Let me be honest here. I tend to consider that their enthusiasm is so contagious that competitors and auction houses can sense it. And so I did not let on to Joan that I was enthusiastic, nor certainly did I give her any indication of the price at which I might be willing to go. Because I didn't want her, in a moment of inattention, to say, "Oh, you know, we might go after it." I'm quite sure she wouldn't have done that, but I had to be absolutely certain. So, I think it came as a bit of a surprise when we paid the highest price ever for such an ancient Near Eastern antiquity.

Joan Aruz: I must confess, I was extremely nervous throughout the entire process. However, the fact that Philippe had actually gone to see the piece was for me, really, the turning point. Because I knew that once he saw it that he would immediately remember—because I think he reacted the same way when he saw it in our exhibition. He would be affected by this piece the way we are.

It's not simply that this is a relic of ancient history and a very important work in the history of art, as I mentioned before. But this piece embodies two traditions. One, the powerful attempt of man to control the forces of nature. And hence we have a figure that, as Philippe said—this very muscled figure that's practically bursting out of his skin, enhanced by these immense horns of the ibex, and wearing the shoes of a mountain dweller: enormous, upturned boots. And yet, he's a nude figure wearing only a belt, which we associate with heroic figures that control nature by controlling wild animals. He also wears the cape of a vulture around his neck. So this is an enhanced figure and the power actually seeps through in the way he is represented.

What's also so fascinating about this piece is that he brings this wild, mountainous tradition into the cities. Because his face is one that we associate with kingship at the dawn of urban life. And that's why this piece was so important in our exhibition, because he's wearing this beard that we usually see on royal figures from the cities of ancient Sumer. So we have, at the very beginning of this type of art, this fascinating combination of two traditions so significant and adding to the power of the figure.

I have to say, I thought this was enough to convince the director. However, I was absolutely on tenterhooks until the time that the sale took place. And then, once I heard about the director's commitment I was so extremely moved by the fact that not only did he appreciate this piece, but it was a validation for the whole history of ancient Near Eastern Art, in my mind.

Philippe de Montebello: I think what you say is very true. Let me say, this is certainly not a validation. This particular example is not a validation of my ability to recognize something; it is the validation of the ability—the living ability—of great objects to continue across the millennia to express, to convince, and to touch us. It's a validation, also, of a curator's conviction and knowledge because in—and I think you could sense it listening to Joan Aruz, a sense not only of her enthusiasm. It's not unbridled; it is completely tied to her deep knowledge of the period.

And I think when the director of a museum sees the object, listens to an argument that is that persuasive, that convincing, one is utterly persuaded that one is not being sold a bill of goods, that one is listening to an argument that one will have to make, also, to the trustees, but that is totally right, legitimate. And that is the reason this is such a great museum, is that one after another, objects enter the collection due to the expertise and the passion of their curators.

Thank you, Joan, for your participation. I hope you who are listening and standing in front of this object are also as smitten as we are by it.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: Here Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, and curator Malcolm Daniel discuss Onésipe Aguado's photograph Woman Seen from the Back. Their conversation was recorded in conjunction with the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Philippe de Montebello: I am with Malcolm Daniel, who is the curator in charge of the Department of Photographs, and we are standing in front of a single image: a very evocative, poetic, mysterious picture of the back of a woman. And there are multiple agendas here. The first is that we are looking at a representative—or very high-level example—of a huge collection of photographs, some several thousand images that we acquired recently; one of the most important and certainly transformative purchases in any curatorial department in this institution.

But at the same time, we're also looking at a single work of art and concentrating on its effect on us. Malcolm, if you would say a word first about the Gilman Collection and its acquisition, and then we'll talk a little bit about this singular image.

Malcolm Daniel: Sure. The Gilman Collection, which we acquired in 2005, was assembled over the course of about two decades, from 1977 to 1997, by Howard Gilman, the chairman of Gilman Paper Company, and his curator, Pierre Apraxine.

They collected photographs during a period when few others were willing to believe in and pay what was necessary to collect the very best of photography from the first century of the medium, from 1839 to 1939. It's a period of photography that was poorly represented in the Met's collection, and this offered us the chance to make a single acquisition that would place us in the top ranks of photography collections worldwide.

In fact, over the period of the 1990s, we worked closely with them. Our acquisitions were often made with the recognition of what was already in the Gilman Collection, and their acquisitions were made with the knowledge of what we had.

Philippe de Montebello: So, in a sense, when we were collecting photography directly, were we doing it in function of what we knew Howard Gilman was collecting, and all of this of course was in the fervent and fervid expectation that that collection would come to the Met?

Malcolm Daniel: That's correct. Unfortunately it didn't play out quite as simply as we expected. We hoped that it would be a gift or a bequest. But when Howard Gilman died in January of 1998, we were somewhat surprised and disappointed to find that it was not in his will that the collection should come to us. And we spent the next seven years, as you know well, negotiating with the foundation that was the chief beneficiary of Howard's estate to bring the collection here. And that involved a partial gift from the foundation, but a major purchase, which required the rallying of all of our supporters and the trustees to make this singular acquisition.

Philippe de Montebello: Now, in all fairness to the foundation and to Howard Gilman and his friends, I think we should say that one of the reasons why the process of the acquisition and the price was so high is that at precisely the moment at which we were negotiating, there was a reversal of fortune in paper companies, and particularly that company, and they were not in a position—much as many of the members of the board wanted—to give us the collection.

This particular image—tell us a little bit about it, because the photographer, Aguado, is not a household name. I suspect even in the field of photography it isn't. And we can all certainly feel the affect of the mystery of the figure turning away from us, the way the profil perdu, the lost profile, in works of Watteau and others compel us to kind of a rapt attention.

But, a question I have, which is of a slightly philosophical nature, is, to a certain extent, when we placed this image on the cover of the catalogue of the first major exhibition mounted before the acquisition of the Gilman Collection, did we not in a certain sense create its celebrity?

To what extent does a museum have an enormous responsibility and effect, in the end, on our perception of works of art through what it chooses to do, especially major institutions such as this one?

Malcolm Daniel: I think that's absolutely the case, and I think it's part of our mission, is to bring photographs, which are not yet in the canon, but which have an extraordinary presence and extraordinary power or mystery to them, and to bring those before the public, and not to rely only on the great names, the iconic works, which were also richly represented in the Gilman Collection.

Here was something that was absolutely unknown. Maybe a few photo historians would have known it. Certainly the public did not know it. The public would not know the name Onésipe Aguado. Most photo historians wouldn't.

And yet, now that this has been celebrated in our 1993 exhibition "The Waking Dream," I think we see it as one of the most beautiful, most enigmatic of nineteenth-century portraits, precisely because of that sense of mystery; what's not revealed. Usually photographs attract us because of the details that they show, the stories that they tell. Here it's what's withheld that is so intriguing.

Philippe de Montebello: Mm-hmm. And the fact that—fifteen years after the exhibition of "The Waking Dream," of which this was the cover—this has lasted and established itself now in the canon of the history of photography is a confirmation that the authority of an institution, as opposed to authoritarianism, is something that is highly valuable, that the public should seek, and that one should continue to exercise, lest we fail in the fundamentals of our mission. Is that not the case?

Malcolm Daniel: Right. I think one of the things that is most exciting for me as a curator of photographs, and I hope for the public, is that there's so much still to discover in our field. I think it would be shocking indeed if one discovered a new, French, nineteenth-century painter of supreme quality who had gone until now without celebration or recognition. By contrast, with photography, there are still great figures and great individual works to be discovered, and there are treasures in the Gilman Collection that we have been and will continue to present to the public and hope that they'll have the same sense of discovery that we have.

Philippe de Montebello: So on that note, I would say to you listening, "Come often." There will be many familiar sights and many a discovery. Thank you, Malcolm, for your insights, and do enjoy the lost gaze of this lady.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: Philippe de Montebello, director of Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Ian Wardropper recorded this discussion in conjunction with the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Philippe de Montebello: So we are standing in front of really an astonishing object, which is a table, and it is a table made entirely of steel, of silver, of various metals, and it was made at the Tula Imperial Armory. Tula was a famous Russian gun manufacturer. And I have here with me Ian Wardropper, who is head of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, who is going to tell us a bit of what a gun manufacturer is doing creating such a thing as a table.

Ian Wardropper: Well, the table—first, it's thanks to Catherine the Great who had the ambition of elevating Russian decorative arts, whether it was importing craftsmen to improve porcelain manufacture or finding new uses for materials such as steel, which, as Philippe said, had been primarily used for making weapons in Tula in this town south of Moscow for centuries.

And Catherine, with her ambitions, decided that these steel manufacturers could be put to use in creating objects almost entirely of steel. This is an enormously labor-intensive occupation and seemingly beyond cost or beyond the worth of labor. But with her encouragement, Tula started manufacturing tables, desks, smaller objects.

And when I arrived at the Metropolitan Museum, this was one of the first objects which came across my desk. I saw the auction catalogue for this and was struck by it, not only because it's an astonishing, beautiful, intriguing object, but also because the Museum had no Russian furniture whatsoever at that point. So I went to Philippe with it. This was also my—as a new department head, exploring my relationship with the director, and was interested to see what he would think of it. And he took to it immediately. He knew what it was, he saw its importance, and we started trying to decide how we might be able to afford this. We eventually had the great good fortune of having Lee Annenberg agree to help us in a bid for this.

Interestingly, we were not able to get it at auction. We were the under bidder. But I put word through the auction house that we would like to pursue this and we did eventually hear from the dealer who had bought it. And he offered us a certain price, which we thought we could go to the trustees with. It was just a very slight markup over the auction price.

And so all seemed sweetness and light until he called the next day to say that his partners had told him he had to ask more money. And that, we thought, was outrageous. So I was stymied for the moment until I realized that we had a very good friend who was a client of this dealer who might be able to put in a word, who happened to be at a restaurant in Paris, and this all was coincidence. And they all sat at the table and the subject of this table, the Tula one, came up. And our friend was able to embarrass the dealer into giving us the original price that he had asked.

So thanks to our friends we were able to proceed and acquire this table, which I must say today almost certainly would be beyond our reach financially given the enormous wealth that has accrued in Russia in recent years and their desire and fascination with their artistic heritage. It would be an object quite certainly beyond our reach today.

And in the case of Tula, this is a kind of object which the Russians have held onto almost as if crown jewels. Very few of them have left the country. This one escaped really only because it was a diplomatic gift at the highest level. We bought the object thinking that something as important as this must have had an imperial commission behind it, but we didn't know.

And so we bought it purely on its merits. But later research showed us that—well, we knew it had belonged to Peter, grand duke of Oldenburg. We later, with research through Wolfram Koeppe, a curator in my department, and thanks to the assistance of colleagues in Russian museums in Saint Petersburg, were able to find out and to prove that it had, in fact, belonged to the empress dowager, Maria Fedorovna. It had been in her private apartments in Pavlovsk, outside of Saint Petersburg, and that she had given it to Peter, duke of Oldenburg, her brother-in-law, in 1801 on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of—the wedding anniversary—of her sister to the duke of Oldenburg.

So we were able to prove conclusively that this had been, in fact, an imperial Russian object.

Philippe de Montebello: But this was after the sale, once we had acquired it. We acquired it simply because it was just such a fabulous object.

Ian Wardropper: Absolutely. And, you know, the truth is that probably today we couldn't afford to acquire it because Russian collectors have become so avid to regain their heritage, and there's such wealth in Russia, that while we paid a very high price for this at the time it would almost certainly be several times that today.

Philippe de Montebello: Is this really one of the finest? It would appear to be.

Ian Wardropper: Perhaps the finest. There are four Tula tables which are known of this type and a center table, relatively small, that owe to English precedence for the most part. The other three are all in Russian museums, and this is the only one that's available, and I think in a way the finest, the most interesting of them all.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, interesting, also because this isn't smooth steel, I mean, the way it's built it looks as if it were created out of diamonds when the light shines on it. It really is amazing.

Ian Wardropper: That's right. The diamonds are called, interestingly, à l'anglaise, and they are faceted diamonds which one would see on maces and other weapons meant to inflict bodily harm on people. But it has been subverted into this almost fairytale-like, dazzling surface particularly covering the baluster in the center. But it has the springing cabriole legs and then it has a tilt top, all of which owes more or less to the English Chippendale model. Of course, it weighs so much that if one actually did tilt the table it would come crashing to the ground. So it's taken its cue from English craftsmanship and design but has made an entirely fanciful and completely Russian metamorphosis of this basic English type into something that is simply dazzling in the light. And one has to imagine it in the light, with candlelight flickering on the diamond-like surfaces that you mention.

To celebrate the acquisition, in fact, we had an exhibition—we mounted an exhibition—called "Celebrating Saint Petersburg," which was the first exhibition in the Wrightsman exhibitions galleries; a series of exhibitions devoted primarily to European sculpture and decorative arts holdings.

Philippe de Montebello: Which fifteen years ago we could never have held.

Ian Wardropper: That's right.

Philippe de Montebello: Because we simply didn't have the material.

Ian Wardropper: And so this was an instance that we could pull together the center table in the middle of the gallery, along with the Menshikov bust, and other porcelain and objects that were made in Russia, not just collected in Russia. So, this was a means to assess our collection, and this center table has brought our Russian holdings ahead light years. Nonetheless we still have a ways to go, and we intend to keep looking for the finest works of Russian art.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Narrator: How about a story? Just sit back, relax, and get ready to listen, because it's Story Time at the Met. Our storyteller for this episode is the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe de Montebello. Where does this story come from, Philippe?

Philippe de Montebello: The ancient Roman poet Ovid told this tale in a book called The Metamorphoses. What an interesting word, "metamorphoses." Shall I tell you what it means? The word "metamorphosis" means changing shape. "Metamorphoses" means more than one change of shape. Ovid's Metamorphoses tells many stories about people, gods, and other beings who changed from one shape to another.

Long, long ago in Greece, high in the mountains, far from any cities, there was a distant land known as Arcadia. Only a few people lived in Arcadia, raising goats and sheep in the rocky meadows.

Arcadia was also the home of Pan, the god of shepherds and their flocks. Pan looked like an old man with overgrown hair, a beard, and two goat's horns growing from his forehead. He galloped around on his wooly goat's legs with cloven hooves.

Old Pan lived alone, the ruler of mountains, woods, and fields. He had a strange power to make others lose their wits with fear when they were out in a lonely place. The Greeks had a name for this terror caused by Pan: they called it "panic."

One day, through the trees, Pan happened to spy a water spirit called a nymph. Her name was Syrinx and she was the fairest of the daughters of the god of a river named Ladon. The sight of Syrinx's grace and beauty filled Pan with love. He called out to her, "Oh, lovely nymph, talk to me!" But the sound of his voice filled Syrinx with panic.

She fled from Pan, back toward her father's home in the river. The god ran after her, shouting, "Stop! I love you! I won't hurt you!" But this frightened Syrinx even more. Soon she grew tired and Pan began to catch up with her. But then she saw the marshy banks of the Ladon ahead. "Save me!" cried Syrinx to the water nymphs, her sisters. They heard her voice just in time.

As Pan was about to catch her, she stepped into the sandy mud along the riverbank. Suddenly Syrinx changed shape. Pan reached out to grasp her hair and found himself holding a hollow reed. A passing breeze made the reed vibrate.

A sad but beautiful sound filled the air. When Pan heard it, he said, "Beautiful nymph, I want to hear your voice forever." He plucked the reed and cut it into pieces of different lengths. He put the pieces in a row, from the longest to the shortest, and tied them together. When he blew over the hollow reeds, sweet music emerged.

Pan named this musical instrument a "syrinx" and played it wherever he went. The syrinx also became known as the panpipe. The Arcadian shepherds played this simple instrument to pass the time while they guarded their flocks.

You can see a marble statue of Pan from ancient Rome the next time you visit the Metropolitan Museum. It's one of the remarkable works of art that entered our collections during my thirty-one years as director. Starting October 24, you can see some of these artworks in a special exhibition called "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions." The exhibition continues through February 1, 2009. I hope you'll come and share in this wonderful celebration at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Narrator: Thank you, Philippe. And thank you, our visitors, for listening to Story Time at the Met. The story of Pan comes from Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated and with an introduction by Mary M. Innes, Penguin Books, 1955.

This has been a production of Antenna Audio.

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Helen Evans: I'm Helen Evans, curator for the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions". Here, Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, talks with Dorothea Arnold about the Museum's Egyptian ritual figure.

Philippe de Montebello: Dorothea Arnold, as head of the Egyptian Department, you came to see me with a little tray in which lay a little treasure. And it is this astonishingly beautiful, refined, just delicious cult or ritual figure. I immediately recognized it because it had been in a sale a few years before in Paris, and I'd always regretted that the Met somehow had not gone after it, but now there was a chance of acquiring it. But what puzzled me at the time was your saying to me that actually this piece, whose surface—that wonderful polish of the wood I so admired—was actually the underside; that it had originally been covered with lead? Is that correct?

Dorothea Arnold: That is correct. And that's of course what also preserved the woodwork in such a pristine condition. Because it's quite clear that the artist, the woodcarver, was doing a piece of art as you see it here and then the lead covering came later, most probably for magical reasons. This is a piece from an Egyptian temple. It does not come from a tomb—as so often pieces. . . or from a household. It was part of a temple equipment. So it lived with the images of the gods and most probably accompanied a larger image of a deity. And this is a world of a lot of magical potency. So to increase that, they often sheathed pieces either in gold, silver, or, in this case, in lead, which had a special magical meaning. And then of course it was possible to shape the cover very much according to the wood core.

Philippe de Montebello: I see. This is fascinating. I have questions about the date, because one looks at Egyptian art, one thinks of the Old Kingdom, one thinks of 3000 b.c. And suddenly we look at the date—only fourth century b.c., which is practically modern. And one always associates early with better. So here we are, in what is probably the Ptolemaic period, and yet we have an object of extraordinary distinction. Is there a revival of art in Egypt in those years?

Dorothea Arnold: Indeed. The fourth century is a peak time for Egyptian art. And there is one of the many of the revivals that since 3000 b.c. the Egyptian culture found. And, here, of course, it's—at the beginning of the fourth century, we have a true also political revival. And that leads, at least in the art, directly into the early years of the rule of the Ptolemies after Alexander. So, we do not only have here a temple piece but we also have a piece of a, as I said, peak period of Egyptian art with this utter refinement, that was perhaps also a hallmark of that period.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, look at just the thinness of the cloth of the skirt as it stretches between the uplifted knee and the other. It's just a wonderful rendering, and the hollow below the knee, the wonderful curvature of the leg… It's magical.

Dorothea Arnold: Indeed. It's like a dancer, really. I mean, in a way you see an ancient artist showing a dancer in a ritual dance. And, of course everybody will ask, "Is there any Greek influence here?" And that is a great question, but as we see it in the development of art at that time, it comes utterly out of the Egyptian tradition.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, it's still completely frontal even though it's wonderfully natural.

Dorothea Arnold: Exactly. It has all the hallmarks of Egyptian art in its classical form.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, Dorothea, I'm thrilled that you brought it to me for acquisition because I think it's just one of the most beautiful objects in your collection. And I hope you all enjoy it, and let your eye rest on its wonderful surfaces, and just imagine the artist as he observes the figure that must have been posed. This is a reaction to something seen, surely.

Dorothea Arnold: I would say so, too, yeah. And it does indeed speak to everybody. You don't have even to know very much about ancient Egypt, I think.

Philippe de Montebello: Although, ironically, I wonder if our modern sensibility doesn't prefer the piece in its current state than had it been covered with lead.

Dorothea Arnold: I think, yes, there's something about that. And in its life now in the Museum, this is the way it lives with us.

Philippe de Montebello: Indeed. Thank you very much, Dorothea.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: In July 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, and curator Amelia Peck recorded this conversation about the Museum's Signature Quilt. The quilt was included in the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Amelia Peck: My name is Amelia Peck. I'm a curator in the American Decorative Arts Department of the American wing here at the Metropolitan. And my responsibilities are both the period rooms in the American wing and American textiles. And I was a research assistant many years ago, starting in 1981, and I came to the Museum, and I worked on the Frank Lloyd Wright Room, which was a wonderful introduction to the Museum. And after a couple of years I left because funding had run out of that project when it was finished. And very luckily some of the people in my department valued me and came up with funding for me to come back as a curatorial assistant. I was in my mid-twenties and I was very thrilled to be working at the Museum and a little overwhelmed by the whole experience. And one of the first things that happened was I was brought to meet the director.

And Lew Sharp, who was my—the administrator of my department—brought me into Philippe and Philippe listened to what it was I was here to do. And I said, "And I am going to work on American textiles." And he looked up at me and said, "Are there any other American textiles beside quilts?" And I thought, "Oh, I'm in big trouble here." Because in the American textile collection that we have at the Museum, one of the highlights is the quilt collection. Certainly we do have other wonderful American textiles. We have samplers. We have a fabulous collection by a woman textile designer called Candace Wheeler. But the only thing I heard was, "Don't bring quilts to this man because he doesn't like them." So I thought, "hmm, how am I going to do this?" Because I knew that out there was a big constituency of people who adored quilts and who collected, made them, internationally.

So that was my first thought about what my mission was going to be here at the Museum, and also it's the reason that I decided that this was the object to put into this exhibition in honor of the director, because I have to say what I value very much about him is his open-mindedness. And the fact is that even though at the beginning he said he didn't like quilts, he has supported many, many acquisitions of quilts. He supported a catalogue that I wrote in 1990 that was then republished and expanded in 2007. He supported four or five exhibitions in quilts. And so I hope over the years I've sort of brought him around a little bit and maybe he's begun to like quilts somewhat.

Philippe de Montebello: I have to interject at this particular point, Amelia, and to say what you cannot say, is to a certain extent it is not only the quilts that you were bringing to me that sold me on quilts, but it is your conviction and your scholarship. Because, to a certain degree, I haven't changed that much of my mind on quilts, but you are persuasive and I recognize as a professional that it is very important if you have under your charge a huge museum in which five thousand years of art from all continents is presented, that not everything can appeal to one's own taste. And this is something that the director of this institution must be conscious of, is to overcome individual likes, dislikes, or indifference and consider the importance to the collection, to the history of art, to the history of society and art, particularly when you come with quilts. And it has always been my job, also, to make certain that the trustees who sit on the acquisitions committee and who are not professionals and will often come into a room and say, "Oh, my God, that's awful" and "What is that hideous thing doing there?" My job then is to say, "But what you think of it is really not terribly relevant. If you are persuaded by the argument given to you by the curator, then your role is to say, 'If this is indeed best of kind, then the institution must have it.'" So it is both the quilt and, in this particular instance—actually, I rather love this one, it reminds me of the floor of a Roman villa—but your conviction which also sold it.

Amelia Peck: Well, I appreciate that, and I think one of the things that I always remember from going to see Philippe with objects, whether they be quilt or anything else, was he would always try to learn about the object and would certainly listen to me and often would say at the end, "Well, if you believe this is an object we should have, we should have it." And I don't think a curator can ask for any better than that.

This is an extraordinary quilt, and very different from anything else in our collection. It was made by a young lady named Adeline Harris Sears who lived in Rhode Island and was seventeen in 1856 and came from a very well-to-do family of mill owners—Rhode Island was a large mill community, mostly cotton mills—and had very little formal education, because in those days girls didn't need formal education, supposedly. She went to about four years of schooling, which was probably mostly finishing school, and had tutors in her own home. But she was an ambitious girl and a girl who seemed to have a lot of intellectual drive. And the family history is that she wanted to go to college. But in 1856 there were really no colleges that were taking young women. So she was kind of left at her own devices and came up with a project that was going to somehow enlarge her horizons and let her learn about the world. And that project was to make an autograph quilt—an autograph collection, actually—but in a very different way than anyone else was doing it.

Collecting autographs was quite normal at the time. People liked collecting autographs. They had this idea that if you got the autograph of someone who was famous, you could learn from the autograph, sort of, what made that person famous and maybe some of that would rub off on you if you looked at their autograph long enough. So that was the strange and interesting reasoning behind autograph quilts. But Adeline decided that she would take diamonds of white silk, stretch them over a piece of cardboard and send them off to all the people—mostly in the United States, but around the world—that she thought were the most important people doing the most important work in the 1850s and ‘60s and ask them to sign the card, send it back to her, and then she would eventually put it together into this magnificent little quilt.

Amazingly enough, I think she sent out about 500 of these; 360 came back, and they were—the largest group of them are politicians from the time, lots of people who were famous in the Civil War, both northerners and southerners. There are signatures from eight or nine American presidents. There are signatures from internationally famous authors like Charles Dickens and William Thackery. There are American artists and painters as well as French and English painters. There are just an amazing array of signatures. And when I first started studying this and looking at all the signatures and researching who they were, I was able to find in just basic biographical dictionaries almost every person on this quilt. She chose very wisely and put together a true picture of the time.

She worked on it for about eight years, collecting the signatures, and in the process of doing so, she wrote a letter to a well-known magazine of the time, Godey's Lady's Book, to Sarah Josepha Hale who was the woman editor there, asking for her autograph and explaining the project. Sarah Josepha Hale was so amazed by the project that she actually published it in Godey's Lady's Book, so this quilt was famous.

Philippe de Montebello: When was this, Amelia?

Amelia Peck: 1864. So this quilt was famous even in its own day, even before it was really made. So it was sort of thought of as this extraordinary thing even in 1864. When she finally did get all of the signatures back, she seems to have put them together in groupings because we think she actually kept on working until about 1876, sort of from internal evidence of how she put the signatures together. So she grouped all the women authors together and all the presidents together. So we think she actually made it in pieces, sort of sections. And eventually when she felt that she really had all the signatures she was going to get, she put it together.

One of the most fascinating rows for American history buffs is column number seven. And that's—if you read over from your left, just count the white rows of diamonds over to column number seven—and that's where you'll find presidents, I believe, from Tyler all the way down to Grant.

Philippe de Montebello: And including Lincoln.

Amelia Peck: And including Lincoln.

Philippe de Montebello: What would have been the purpose and the function of such a quilt? Certainly not a bedcover, so how do you think she would have expected it to be presented or kept? Would it have been hung on a wall, placed on a table? What do you think she was thinking of?

Amelia Peck: I don't—you're absolutely right. It would never have been a bedcover really, even though it's funny if you—when you read some little inscriptions that some of the authors wrote, some of the poets actually put little bits of doggerel, they make little jokes about quilts and sleeping and all of that. But I think it was really a collection. And at some point it was hung on the wall, whether by her or by her daughter—this did pass down in her family until it came to the Museum—because there are tiny little rings at the top. So we do believe it was hung for a while by one of the family members.

The way we acquired it was interesting because it does talk a little bit about how internationally—the international market and interest in quilts. This quilt was published in a book in the 1970s, one of the first books about American quilts, because they didn't really become popular as art forms until the 1970s, and then it sort of disappeared. A little before we acquired this—I think we acquired this in 1996—a Japanese quilting group came over to the United States and somehow they managed to find this quilt, which was in the great-granddaughter's home in Long Island, wrapped in an old pillowcase, in a nineteenth-century pillowcase, in her attic. And they got in contact with her, and she was willing to have the Japanese quilting group come in to see this quilt.

And luckily for us, Nobuko Kajitani, who was our former head of textile conservation, was friendly with the head of the Japanese quilting group and went along on the trip and she saw this and the next day called me up and she said, "Amelia, there's an amazing quilt out at this lady's house in Long Island. You must go and see it," which I did, and it was truly an amazing quilt.

And the granddaughter who had it was concerned about its condition because it was silk. And when the ink signatures were put on the cards—the ink has mineral salts in it and it was beginning to corrode the silk, and so some of the signatures were sort of being cut in to the fabric, actually. So she, after lots of negotiation between the Museum and the family, because it was co-owned by four great-grandchildren, they decided finally they would sell it to the Museum.

There was some question, because these are all autographs, of how do you value this quilt? Is the value in the autographs or is the value in the quilt? And we—they did talk to an autograph dealer who said, well, Abraham Lincoln's signature, which is on this, is worth whatever thousands of dollars, and Ulysses Grant's signature is worth X thousands of dollars. And so the value, if you went signature by signature, was huge. But then again, the signatures were on little pieces of silk that were being eaten up by the ink. And, of course, I would argue that this is a collection and a magnificent object and you shouldn't be thinking of it autograph by autograph. So eventually we did convince the family and were able to purchase it for the Museum.

Elena Phipps, who is our wonderful conservator of American textiles, came up with a solution to keep the quilt from further having conservation problems. And that was we pressure-mounted it between two pieces of Plexiglas—actually the backing is a soft backing, then the quilt is put on, and then it is pressure-mounted against a soft backing with a piece of Plexi, and it basically is holding everything in place so now we can hang it, we can do whatever we want with it, but it won't corrode further and it's now in a permanent mount that way.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, it's now a great asset, it's wonderful to the eyes, wonderful to the mind, it's just a fascinating object, and, Amelia, you've told us a wonderful story about it. And I hope you all enjoy it the way I do now.

Amelia Peck: Thank you very much.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Denise Leidy talks with director Philippe de Montebello about the Buddha Amoghasiddhi Attended by Bodhisattvas. The painting was included in the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Philippe de Montebello: I tend to associate a lot of Tibetan paintings with rather rigid pictures with very set iconographic programs and, frankly, rather repetitive. So I had a bias against it until this particular picture was brought into my office. And, immediately, I was taken by the soft color tones, the delicacy of the line, the minuteness in which the forms are created, and the imagination—the fresh imagination—that seems to emerge out of the individual figures. And I said to myself, "This is clearly out of the ordinary. This is not the kind of Tibetan painting that I usually hate. This is really quite wonderful." So I have Denise Leidy from the Asian Department who is going to tell us a little more about the very complicated iconography or whatever else she would like to say about the picture.

Denise Leidy: I think perhaps I'd like to just step back a little bit and address your dislike of Tibetan painting for a moment. And point out that part of the problem we in the West have is that when Westerners discovered Buddhism, which was in the late eighteenth century—and it was the British and the Raj in India—we decided that Buddhism needed to be pure. And, because of that, there was always a bias against Tibetan art, I think, in part, because of what you mentioned: the very complicated iconographies, the mind-boggling array of deities, the use of color that can be somewhat dramatic if you're not used to it. And, as a result, Tibetan painting didn't show up in art museums until relatively late in the history of collecting. And your gracious buying of this piece is a good example of that. It's extraordinarily beautiful.

It represents a very important moment, when Indian aesthetics were first coming into Tibet. And you can see that in the choice of these kind of broad and voluptuous figures. You can see that in the liveliness. And I think what it tells us is that at a point in time when Tibet was really flowering and was the center for Buddhism, Tibetan artists were capable of taking another aesthetic and transforming it completely.

Philippe de Montebello: That's very true, and it's also that so often one is confronted with late—seventeenth-, eighteenth-, nineteenth-century—Tibetan paintings that are, frankly, repetitive last exhalation of a dying style, whereas these are pictures in which the actual iconography is being born, is being created, so that there is the sense of the fertile imagination of the artist at work. Let's just talk about the date and when this was done.

Denise Leidy: Well, this is a very early piece. It dates to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It represents the beginning of a second wave of Buddhist art in Tibet. It is highly Indianized, as I mentioned, I think, in the firm body of the green Buddha; in the, kind of, sense of sway in the Bodhisattvas on the side. It's—as you know, or I think you may remember from when the piece was purchased—it is one of a group of five. They represent the five transcendent Buddhas. So this is a Buddha with a peculiar name; it's Amoghasiddhi. Of the group of five, this is probably the one that was used in the consecration. And we know that because of the wonderful little scene of the monk in the lower right-hand corner and the rather dramatic altar that's right before him.

Philippe de Montebello: Is the monk in this instance the donor, the patron of the temple?

Denise Leidy: He could be. We're not sure because his name is not inscribed on the back of the painting. So he could be the donor and he could also be the—

Philippe de Montebello: The abbot of the monastery.

Denise Leidy: The abbot of the monastery. At this point in Tibetan history, monasteries were often family affairs, so it was a clan that patronized a monastery.

Philippe de Montebello: And what are these wonderful little open mouths, these tongues above the figures on the bottom and beneath the Buddha?

Denise Leidy: Do you mean the lotus petals?

Philippe de Montebello: Oh, is that what they are, lotus petals?

Denise Leidy: They're lotus petals, yes.

Philippe de Montebello: Ah.

Denise Leidy: And, as you know, Philippe—because I'm sure nine million curators have told you this—the lotus is a symbol of purity in Buddhist art. It rises from the muddy waters but is unsullied when it opens up, so it becomes a symbol of purity. Also, in a subtle way, a symbol of rebirth, as well.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, this is absolutely fascinating, and I promise to approach, in the future, all Tibetan painting with an open mind and an innocent eye. And I thank you for shedding light on the subject, Denise.

Denise Leidy: Okay, well, thank you very much. And I look forward to talking to you about another Tibetan painting someday.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Narrator: How about a story? Just sit back, relax, and get ready to listen, because it's Story Time at the Met. I'd like to introduce our special guest storyteller. Here's the director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe de Montebello.

Philippe de Montebello: Two hundred years ago, the Brothers Grimm recounted this folk tale. It's an unusual story about a test of true love called The Twelve Huntsmen.

Once upon a time, a prince loved a beautiful maiden. He gave her a ring from his finger as a promise of marriage, and swore he would never break that promise. At that moment, unfortunately, a messenger arrived from the palace. The prince's father, the king, had taken ill, and asked to see his son. The prince left, promising to return for his future bride.

He found the old king lying on his deathbed. "My throne is yours," said the king, "And also my wisest friend. Here he comes." In walked a lion with a flowing mane. The lion bowed and spoke to the prince, "Your majesty, you know, I can see into people's hearts, and I will always speak the truth."

Next the king said, "My dying wish, my son, is that you marry Wilhelmina, the daughter of my cousin, Wilhelm. Promise that you will." Sadly, the prince agreed. And so the old king passed away, his son became king and announced his marriage to the Princess Wilhelmina.

When the maiden heard this, she pined with grief. Her father promised to give the maiden anything she asked. "Father," she said, "find eleven women who look just like me." The maiden's father searched high and low until he found eleven women who looked like his daughter. Next the maiden disguised herself and the eleven women as huntsmen. A "huntsman," by the way, means a young man who hunted for deer, wild boar, and other game.

The twelve went straight to the new king's court, and asked to speak with him. He didn't realize that they were women. Nor did he recognize the maiden he loved. They introduced themselves as brothers and asked to serve the king as royal huntsmen. The king agreed at once. But when they left, the lion said, "Those huntsmen are really women."

"Ridiculous," said the king. The lion answered, "Tomorrow, put peas upon the floor before your throne. If they are really men, their heavy steps will crush the peas. If they're women, their light steps will make the peas roll away." The maiden was listening outside the door and heard every word.

Next morning, the twelve huntsmen walked into the king's presence with heavy steps and crushed the peas.

The king said, "Lion, these are men!"

"No, they're women," said the lion. "Tomorrow, set out twelve spinning wheels. No woman can resist a spinning wheel when she sees one."

Again the maiden overheard the plan. Next day, the twelve came in and walked right past the spinning wheels. The king refused to listen to the lion any more.

One day, the king went riding with his huntsmen. A messenger approached, calling out, "Your majesty, your future bride approaches." Hearing this, the maiden fainted dead away. The king leapt to her aid, thinking one of his huntsmen had fallen ill. Then his eye caught the ring on her finger and he recognized it as his own.

With that, the king remembered his promise, and the woman he had loved. He sent Princess Wilhelmina away and married the maiden. She became the queen. Her eleven faithful friends became ladies-in-waiting. The lion became prime minister. And all was right again, forevermore.

This story reminds me that hunting used to be the favorite sport of kings and princes. The collection of The Cloisters includes a deck of fifty-two playing cards made in 1475. Instead of hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds, the four suits are items used to go hunting: dog collars, tethers, gaming nooses, and horns. Each card has hand-painted pictures. The kings, queens, and knaves—or jacks—are lovely portraits of the beautiful clothing that royalty and nobles wore in medieval Europe.

Starting October 24, you can see these rare, medieval playing cards in a special exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum. It's called "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions". It's a wonderful chance to see some important artworks that entered our collections during my thirty-one years as director. I hope to see you there!

Narrator: "The Philippe de Montebello Years" continues through February 1, 2009. Thank you for listening to Story Time at the Met.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: This conversation between Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, and curator Ken Moore was recorded in conjunction with the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions".

Philippe de Montebello: In 1986, I received a call from a great hero of mine, Andrés Segovia. I'd always loved his recordings, and he said, "I'd like to come to the museum and talk to you about my guitars." When he came he indicated that he wanted to give at least two of his guitars, and the principal one with which he made his recordings, to the Met. I was absolutely thrilled. I've always loved guitar music—not so much classical, which I wasn't listening to much, but cante jondo and flamenco. And here is one of those guitars, the one made by a German-Austrian maker. And I have a question for Ken Moore, the curator of the department, because to me it looks very much like a Spanish guitar, yet we are told it is by a German maker. So what is it and what would the essential difference be?

Ken Moore: Well, you're absolutely correct at how it looks. It is a Spanish guitar. Hauser met Segovia in 1924 and he was inspired at that point to start making Spanish-style instruments. He had been making the Viennese style. They are smaller and if you look at its profile, its hourglass figure is much more chunkier at the top and the bottom. The Spanish guitar sort of elongates as opposed to the Viennese style. So it was a whole, sort of, retooling for Hauser when he started making these instruments, and it was an experiment for him, too.

Philippe de Montebello: Aha. He also gave us the Ramirez guitar that he played earlier. Why did he want to change, and what would this guitar have done sound-wise or otherwise that is different?

Ken Moore: Well…

Philippe de Montebello: [thumping sound] And we're hearing—Ken is actually holding the guitar in his hands, so when you hear noises and perhaps even a note, it's the guitar itself. So what . . . what would be the difference?

Ken Moore: Segovia grew up in Andalusia. His first guitar was a Flamenco-style guitar. His parents were really against him playing and they kept destroying his guitars and he kept getting new ones. Finally he got very serious and his parents sent him to Granada to music school. He then started playing the Ramirez guitar, a Spanish classical guitar that was based upon an older tradition of Torrés.

The things that you don't see on this guitar are the struts that are on the inside. They fan out from below the sound hole. And these are the structural elements that start making the instrument sound a certain way. The Flamenco-type guitar, which Segovia really started learning his trade from, actually is a little bit smaller than this particular model. Ramirez had a fuller sound. It was an expressive instrument. But Segovia kept pushing the limits. He wanted to be more expressive. He got away from the Flamenco style. He went into classical music, which was totally unheard of at the time, and he picked up some of the very nice nineteenth-century Spanish music that would have been played in parlors and also in concert halls. He did transcriptions, and he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

Ramirez died, so Segovia had gone to a concert in Munich and heard several of the Hauser guitars and thought, "Ah, this man has the great potential to make a great instrument." At that point, he met Hauser, they discussed it, Hauser started making the Spanish-style guitars. He experimented. Segovia wanted a kind of boomy bass, a nice melody string—the top string—where he could really bring out the melodies. He had about twelve or fourteen of Ramirez's guitars before he settled on this one. And this one he called "the greatest guitar of the epoch." And he, like most musicians, fell in love with his guitar. The relationship between the musician and their instruments is a romance.

Philippe de Montebello: Oh, you could tell when he came and gave the guitars. He actually arrived with the guitars—he had a cane at the time—he sat down and played both of them for us briefly and it was a very moving moment, so looking it as an instrument, I think one can almost hear it and its moment in history and beautiful shape, so . . .

Ken Moore: Yes, and its history is still with us. If you look at the guitar closely, when you look at it on the right side just about at four o'clock off the sound hole there's a lighter patch on it. This is a repair patch. Segovia had been recording and there was a disastrous microphone accident and, by this time, Hauser had died and his son was taking over the business. The Hauser family is a dynasty of guitar makers. So the son tried to make the repairs. So you can see that he sanded down this area—that's why it's lighter—and he re-varnished it a bit. After that, Segovia didn't think the guitar was as good as it had been, so he retired it later on.

But one of the wonderful things about this guitar, even with its boomy bass and a really wonderful top string, the other strings, which sometimes, in the middle, the—particularly the number two and number three string— sometimes get lost on regular guitars. On this instrument, they always stood out. You could always have clarity of line. It was really wonderful. And one thing the viewer might look at is that there are three nylon strings on this guitar. Segovia was one of the first ones to champion nylon strings.

Philippe de Montebello: What were they, metal before?

Ken Moore: Yes, and gut.

Philippe de Montebello: And gut.

Ken Moore: These would have been gut.

Philippe de Montebello: So you had both, the bass ones and then the treble.

Ken Moore: Yes, our bass ones are metal; the top ones are now nylon. This is for stability of sound and tone, which, of course, Segovia kept pushing for.

Some of the other things we might look at on this instrument are, sort of, the dirty parts of it. And by that I mean the sweat marks that are on the upper left-hand side of the instrument. These are from Segovia playing the instrument. Also, if you look at the top of the shoulder on the right of the instrument, you'll see some dirty areas where his hand would have rested. So the instrument has the history of Segovia playing right into it, and some people might think we should clean that up, but it's the history, and that's the way we want to keep it.

Philippe de Montebello: Oh, well, that gives it obviously more than history; it gives it life. But, tell us, what is it about musical instruments that makes them a legitimate area of collecting for an art museum?

Ken Moore: Their forms; their relationship to the other arts. You see musical instruments in all iconography from all ages, times, periods, places. The guitar, of course, is an iconic instrument. You see it being played in Watteau, you see it being played all over the place. It's a very iconic instrument, which can either denote the lowest class of a society or even the highest class of society. You find it throughout every part of society in the Western world.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, this is fascinating, and I hope you who are listening and looking are equally fascinated. Thank you, Ken.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: I'm Helen Evans, curator of the exhibition "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions". In this recording, Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello, talks with curator Sabine Rewald about one of the paintings included in the exhibition: Lucian Freud's Naked Man, Back View.

Philippe de Montebello: Before I discuss with curator Sabine Rewald of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, and before she tells us something about the artist Lucian Freud and his place in twentieth-century and certainly contemporary art, as well as about this picture, I thought I would say a few words about its acquisition.

There is no question that when it was presented to me by the curator, I reacted first of all by feeling that I was in the presence of something truly very powerful. I had really no problem with the subject matter. I suspect I experienced a sense of gratitude and perhaps even of relief that he was facing the other way.

But my first thought, being a great admirer of Lucian Freud's, was, "How would I get a committee of the Board of Trustees that included a number of very elegant and elderly ladies, all extremely proper, to make this acquisition?" And let me jump forward before we talk about the picture to the meeting itself when—and I will name her—the late Brooke Astor sat directly in front of the picture.

And I watched her expression, which went from green to purple to ashen—that's her complexion—and a sense of total wonderment. The curators presented the work. And, as happens, then they are asked to leave the room and I, as director, must make the pitch. And before I had a chance to say something about the Lucian Freud, Brooke said, "I would like to say a few words." I sort of sank back in my seat, saying, "Well, nice try." Well, what happened is that Brooke said, "I've been sitting in front of this picture for many minutes now"—it was more than an hour, in fact—"at first looking at what I considered to be a disgusting, massive, mound of flesh. And just—I couldn't take that out of my mind. And as the meeting progressed and as I kept looking at it, something strange occurred, a metamorphosis. Suddenly all I saw was paint—paint layers. And suddenly I realized that he had taken an ugly subject and turned it into a beautiful picture. I vote for it." And, of course, everybody followed.

I thought that was very well put by Brooke. Now, Sabine, tell us about Lucian Freud and this picture.

Sabine Rewald: First of all, I want to say Mrs. Brooke Astor was a very enlightened trustee to be able to sit in front of this mound of flesh and to see the transformation that Lucian Freud did. He was a realist, you see. This is really very different as if sitting in front of Ingres's Odalisque, which is idealized.

Philippe de Montebello: Indeed.

Sabine Rewald: There could not be a greater difference to this, where Lucian Freud really takes a bulk of a man who weighed 225 pounds, was 6 feet 2, was a very scandalous performance artist who performed in nightclubs and did things I couldn't say in this… in this… to you…

Philippe de Montebello: Let's talk later, Sabine.

Sabine Rewald: Let's talk later. Anyway, and he was—he was just thirty-one. And Lucian Freud had known him and took him to lunch and asked him to his studio and—Leigh Bowery was his name—was so used to take off his clothes, he took at once off his clothes. And there was this bulk of flesh, all shaven. He even had his hair shaven. And Lucian Freud thought that his skin, his body, his flesh was an instrument that was very malleable.

And Lucian Freud, the greatest realist painter still alive—and his pictures bring the highest prices—had painted nudes before. You see his—he had painted portraits and nudes. But with Leigh Bowery he started to use models—professional models. Before he had used his daughters, his wife, only family and friends. And this was the first performer, and he liked this—Lucian Freud's lightness and ability to form with his naked body. Do you see? On this naked flesh you see every bruise, every pimple, every bump. And it becomes a landscape with ridges, with valleys.

But I must tell you, Mrs. Astor was very enlightened because yesterday I looked again to the picture. And I talked with a guard, and I said, "Have you ever seen a fat man like this so close up?" He said, "Never. It's shocking." And he was a young man.

Philippe de Montebello: Well, that is what makes a great museum: persuasive and good, articulate curators, and an enlightened, exemplary board of trustees such as we have. So, we are grateful to this enlightenment and this has brought this major, realist picture of the twentieth century in our galleries. And I hope you, too, in looking at it, will focus on the painterly quality, rather than what you might consider to be somewhat less high in the hierarchies of what affects human beings.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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Helen Evans: I'm Helen Evans, and I served as curator for "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions." In July 2008, Philippe de Montebello recorded this discussion with curator Keith Christiansen about one of the Museum's masterworks: Duccio's Madonna and Child.

Philippe de Montebello: I'm standing with Keith Christiansen, curator in the Department of European Paintings. And the first thought that comes to my mind when I look at this divine picture is that very few things do tip the scale in favor of man, and this is certainly one of them.

This is a picture that compels one to rapt attention and from which I have found, since I had the opportunity to hold it in my hands I think for two solid hours when it was being offered for sale, that I couldn't let go of, not just as a physical object, but my eyes couldn't pull away from that extraordinary image of the Virgin, the Child, just the whole divine and yet human communication between these two figures. And what also compelled me to consider the acquisition absolutely mandatory is the assurance that Keith, who knows so much about pictures of this period, had—and communicated to me—as he will to you. Keith?

Keith Christiansen: Well, you know, all of us respond in different ways to different pictures. There's those pictures that speak to one directly and immediately, and you're not really sure why this is so. But this was certainly my experience with Duccio. I can remember very clearly the first time I visited Siena, 1968, and went to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo and saw the Maestà, and it is one of those pictures that you practically lose consciousness in front of. It absorbs you—the tenderness, the quality of humanity—and it's at the same time something that seems to belong to another world, something that belongs to a sacred sphere that you are a participant in. And when we went to London to look at this picture for acquisition, I thought, "I'm having the same experience before this picture," an ineffable presence—physically present and yet a messenger from another world.

There are two great monuments in the years around 1300 that redefined Western art: Giotto's cycle of frescos in the Arena Chapel in Padua, and the Maestà of Duccio in Siena. These are the two poles. They are the Sistine ceiling and the Stanze of Raphael in the sixteenth century; they are Picasso and Matisse in the early twentieth century.

So, I shared completely, Philippe, your love of this picture and your response to it. And it would be very difficult for me to articulate why this is so, but in front of this picture I have a magic moment. But if you were to say, "What is a transforming work of art?" I would say it's this: you seem to be aware of something intangible that you need to be in touch with. It's like a great piece of music.

Philippe de Montebello: I think the way that you speak about it and when you say "great piece of music," I'm instantly wanting to say it's that inner vibrato in the painting that touches us so. And I could ask you—and perhaps you could say a word or two—about its art historical place, the significance of the parapet. But what you, who are standing here with us, you listening to us, I think get out of this is that, in a sense, any art historical explanation that we can give you would simply cement your knowledge of the fact that it plays an enormous role in the birth of Western art. But it is that the art historical apparatus that would come from us is secondary to the effect that the picture has on us, as do very few, but this—a consummate work of art.

Keith Christiansen: This, of course, is a fantastic step forward. Somebody who's working within the heritage of Byzantine painting—Byzantine painting which represents figures primarily as hieroglyphs through a series of conventions that have been passed down, very beautiful conventions that are meant in the Platonic sense to represent things not as they appear but as ideas.

Duccio and Giotto, in different ways, moved painting from the realm of the idea to the realm of the felt, to the real. Duccio achieves this in two ways. There's this funny little parapet in the foreground with the little corbels—that he sets up an illusionistic basis that separates the pictorial fiction from the realm that we're living in. And then there's the tenderness of the action of the child pushing up the veil of the Virgin so he can get a better view. There's the emotional realm that opens up in this extraordinary—I don't want to say a sad face, but a melancholic face. She obviously has foreknowledge of what's going on, and it seems to well up from some other world. And then there's extraordinary modeling of the draping. Of course, blue is the crucial thing in early Italian paintings. It so frequently has changed, flattened, but here you have the beautiful modeling over her hand, over her arm. And I've always felt that Duccio was looking at Roman sculpture in this. As we know, both Duccio and Giotto looked upon themselves as reviving the Classical period, the great Roman period of painting.

So it's a picture that hovers between these two realms of the idea and the real that speaks both to our own personal experience—it's a mother and a child—but it's also the Mother of God and Jesus. And this is this extraordinary realm that Duccio explores: how do you maintain the sacred, but make it approachable and appreciable by ordinary people?

Philippe de Montebello: Thank you, Keith. I think this was a wonderful explanation. And you, the visitor and the viewer, I think you will find that although from the point of view of the numbers of inches or centimeters this is a small picture, that it will grow to immense proportions in your imagination. Thank you.

Helen Evans: This recorded conversation was produced in conjunction with "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," on view at the Met through February 1, 2009. The exhibition was organized in tribute to Philippe de Montebello's thirty-one years as director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Come to the Museum to take an audio tour of the galleries with Philippe and many of the Met's curators.

This has been an Antenna Audio production.

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