View of gallery 999 during the installation of Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio. All photos courtesy of the author
«If you like opening gifts (and who doesn't?), then try to imagine 48 crates, each with a marvelous painting of varying dimensions, the loan of which you have negotiated over the past three to four years. Most of these come with a gift bearer—couriers—whose job it is to make sure the works are handled with the requisite care and installed in their designated place with the proper attention. Alas, there are no gold ribbons or decorative boxes, and the "gift" is really only a loan—but when it is this good, who cares that it is "yours" for only three months!»
To make an exhibition such as Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio a reality, The Met has a great team of technicians, riggers, metal workers, and carpenters to help install these works, all of whom work alongside conservators, designers, and even a curator. (That would be me!)
Some paintings are too big to be unpacked in the galleries and, as such, after being unpacked in the basement, have to make their way through the Museum accompanied by a conservator. Below, Valentin's Allegory of Italy—the largest of the pictures in the exhibition and a real showstopper—is wheeled through the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court toward a large freight elevator.
Here the riggers remove another large picture from its crate in order to begin the examination process:
I feel the greatest excitement when a picture as important as the one below—Valentin's altarpiece for Saint Peter's Basilica, Martyrdom of Saints Processus and Martinian, on loan to The Met from the Vatican Museums—goes up on the wall. The pictures in that final section of the exhibition, by the way, are a group of works that will never be seen again in the public realm during our lifetimes.
Related Links
Valentin de Boulogne: Beyond Caravaggio, on view at The Met Fifth Avenue through January 16, 2017