Met’s New Acquisition, New Curator: Late-Breaking News, Broken Late

"The Three Graces," Roman, Imperial period, 2nd century A.D., copy of Greek work from 2nd century B.C., displayed in the Metropolitan Museum's Greek and Roman sculpture court

Back on May 12, CultureGrrl broke some news that the Met has finally confirmed in a press release that hit my inbox very early today:

An ancient Roman group statue of great importance and beauty---a depiction of the Three Graces of Greek mythology---has been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by Thomas P. Campbell, the Museum's director....

Discovered in Rome in 1892, the statue has been on loan to the Museum from a private collector since 1992, and has been on view in the center of the Leon Levy and Shelby White Sculpture Court since it opened in 2007.

But when will the Met get around to breaking the news about its new senior curator of American painting, an appointment disclosed more than two weeks ago by the Hartford Courant [via]?

Roger Catlin of the Courant reports:

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is losing its chief curator to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, who also is the Krieble curator of American painting and sculpture at the Atheneum, the nation's oldest public museum, has taken the post of senior curator of American painting at the prestigious Met, effective Sept. 1....

At the Met, Kornhauser will be responsible for reinstalling the American paintings collection, the opening of which next year will be the final phase of the new American Wing that reopened in 2009 after two years of construction and renovation.

At the Wadsworth, Kornhauser was responsible for another reinstallation---that of the Connecticut museum's Hudson River School paintings.

I assume that she is the replacement for Carrie Rebora Barratt, who was promoted last September to associate director for collections and administration at the Met. Carrie also stars in one of the most watched CultureGrrl Videos!

Is Betsy ready for her close-up?