New at the Met: Italian Loans Prominently Labeled
As I scurried yesterday through the empty halls of the closed-on-Monday Metropolitan Museum to get to the press preview of the extraordinary Courbet show (opening tomorrow), I was stopped short by an unusually prominent red object label:
"Four Major Loans From the Republic of Italy"
When the Met received three objects from Italy last month (including the Greek terracotta drinking cup, above), to compensate for the loss of the Euphronios krater and other works relinquished to Italy, the consolation loans were discreetly dispersed among pieces from Met's own permanent collection. This unheralded installation suggested that the Met found little to celebrate in their arrival.
The objects are still dispersed, but now even the Laconian drinking cup that has been sitting modestly in a Met case since November, sports a new look-at-me label:
Did this happen because the guards got tired of having to direct inquiring visitors to the scattered in-the-news objects? Or did the Met decide that a prominent acknowledgement of the Italian loans was diplomatically desirable?
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LEE ROSENBAUM
I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I am a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School and on museum governance at Seton Hall University. Contact me
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