NEW YORK - The Metropolitan of New York has embarked on a path to transform itself, 150 years after its foundation, into a less European-centric institution and more inclusive of other cultures: this does not mean that attention to the 'old continent' is decreased.
On Saturday about twenty galleries dedicated to Renaissance and Baroque artists, the so-called "Old Masters", which have been closed for over two years for repairs, will reopen to the public, while the museum has just announced a substantial donation of historic European armor by by Ronald Lauder, co-heir with his brother Leonard of the fortune Estee Lauder, whose collection put together over the span of over 40 years, is considered the most important in the world still in private hands.
From Giotto to Goya: over 500 works from European galleries "will be appreciated in a new light even in a literal sense" thanks to new high-tech skylights that replaced the old ones built in the late 1930s, said museum director Max Hollein , presenting the new layout to the press.
Reinstallation closes the first phase of the work.
The second phase will be completed in spring 2022. The restoration work has allowed the collections to be revisited by identifying new themes: the Baroque gallery will include not only Italian paintings but also by Spanish contemporaries to underline the impact of Italian art in Europe catholic.
Another gallery will explore the way in which painters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin and others have recovered themes of classical mythology and the Bible in a contemporary way, yet another will show the female influence in genre painting and nature died in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Northern European painters such as Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Durer will dialogue with Southern contemporaries such as Filippo Lippi and Giovanni Bellini.
The reopening of European galleries or at least a good half of them is not the only news that brings the 'old continent' back to the center of the Met's activities: the museum has just received 91 elements of its collection from cosmetics magnate Lauder collection of historical armor.
The donation is the most important of its kind since 1942, with pieces ranging from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to rare examples of firearms, to the point that the Met will rename in honor of the patron the 11 galleries that house its current collection of Arms and Armors.
Ronald Lauder's gift follows that of his brother Leonard, who seven years ago promised the Met an impressive collection of Cubist paintings: 33 Picasso, 17 Braques, 14 Leger and 14 Gris, for a total value estimated at the time in over one billion dollars.