(New York, June 2, 2003)—Due to the exceptionally strong public response to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed international loan exhibition Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, the Museum announced today that it will extend the run of the show through June 29. It was originally scheduled to close on June 8.
"We are extremely pleased to extend the exhibition for three additional weeks," said Philippe de Montebello, Director of the Museum. "Thanks to the generosity of the major institutions who have agreed to extend their loans, we are able to offer New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors added opportunity to see this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, which brings together masterpieces from the artistic capitals of Europe and America in a breathtaking survey of Spanish, French, and American painting."
Over 450,000 visitors have viewed Manet/Velázquez since it opened at the Metropolitan Museum on March 4, including more than 1,700 who have taken advantage of "Members Mondays." This trial program allows individuals and groups to visit the exhibition on Mondays, when the Museum is closed to the
public, at a cost of $50 per person; the Monday ticket price includes an Audio Guide tour of the exhibition. With the extension of Manet/Velázquez, Members Mondays will also be extended to include special viewing days on June 9, 16, and 23. (Tickets for Members Mondays may be ordered by calling 212-731-1200). There is no special ticketing during regular Museum hours. Members Mondays will not be offered again at the Metropolitan until the exhibition El Greco is on view from October 7, 2003, through January 11, 2004.
Of the nearly 240 paintings and works on paper on view in Manet/Velázquez, only five paintings will not remain for the period of the extension. James Abbott McNeill Whistler's Harmony in Gray and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander will move to the Frick Collection to join the exhibition Whistler, Women, and Fashion, and Gustave Moreau's Philip IV on Horseback, Copy after Velázquez will return to the Moreau Museum in Paris for inclusion in a special exhibition. Three others—Gustave Courbet's The Cellist (Self-Portrait) from the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Eugène Delacroix's Self-Portrait (Ravenswood) from the Musée Eugène Delacroix, Paris; and Francisco de Goya's Young Women (The Letter) from the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille—will return to their respective museums.
Accenture, a global management company, is the proud sponsor of the exhibition, which included building an interactive Web site specifically for the exhibition.
The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and
the Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d'Orsay.
An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
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