The Making of the Met

The Making of the Met: The Grandest American Museum.

The temple of Dendur occupies the west wing of this museum which was specially built to house this new arrival, gifted by Egypt to the United States in 1967 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. Another wing displays the celebrated early Italian Renaissance collection of Robert Lehman, scion of the now demised investment bank, while its expressionist holdings are one of the best in the world.

Jayne Wrightsman donated all her fabulous Louis XIV furniture and bequeathed $80 million dollars for further acquisitions. Countless other grandees of old and new New York society gave their prized possessions and paintings and this talk examines how the Met, from its founding in 1870, was and remains the greatest and grandest museum in America.