Danny Danziger - Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1866 a group of eminent Americans sat down at a fashionable restaurant in Pariss Bois de Boulogne to celebrate the Fourth of July. John Jay, a prominent lawyer and grandson of the first chief justice, remarked to his compatriots that it was time for the American people to lay the foundations of a National Institution and Gallery of Art.

The suggestion was enthusiastically received, and over the next few years some of the wealthiest and most ardent art collectors and philanthropists were drawn to this notion. J. Pierpont Morgan, H. O. Havemeyer, the Lehman brothers, Benjamin Altman, many of the Rockefeller family, and Cornelius Vanderbilt all gave their support with money, books, and works of art. The city of New York, for its part, agreed to pay for the building and upkeep of a museum while the trustees retained its contents, an arrangement that still applies.

The project moved ahead swiftly, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated four years later, on April 13, 1870. Now, nearly a century and a half later, not only is the Metropolitan Museum one of the greatest museums in the world, but its success is an inspiring story for all Americans, showing what private wealth in public-spirited hands can achieve.

One wonders if the founders of this Museum could ever have imagined that by the twenty-first century the Met would have become the number one tourist attraction in New York, with more than four million visitors a year.

Reflecting the energy and vibrant lifestyle that is the hallmark of this city, the visitors who arrive here in a never-ending stream are an enthusiastic lot. They walk up the stairs, underneath the promotional banners that once billowed in the wind but are now smaller and tethered to the front of this great neoclassical building; the enormous banners, it was decided, blocked out too much light inside the building. In the formidable reception area known as the Great Hall, you can see dozens of people at any one time waiting to meet friends or family prior to embarking on a tour of the galleries.

On a typical day I made a snapshot inventory of visitors. As well as being from the host city, there were people from Tokyo and Kansas, Barcelona and Michigan, noisy schoolchildren from France, a party of nuns from upstate New York, a sculptor from Omsk, Siberia, eager to see the Rodins, a daughter meeting her mother, a German businessman taking advantage of a lull between meetings to go through the Egyptian wing, and two lovers, who remained unself-consciously entwined as we talked.

It is the Metropolitans boast that every culture from every part of the world is represented here, from Florence to Thebes to Papua, New Guinea, from the earliest times to the present, and in every medium. Musical Instruments adjoins Arms and Armor, while thirty-five thousand Egyptian objects are displayed on the floor directly above a collection of forty-five thousand costumes. There are nineteen departments or collections, and each could be a major independent museum in itself. Theres the American Wing and Modern Art, the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, Medieval Art, Islamic Art, and Drawings and Prints and Photographs, Ancient Near Eastern and Asian Art, European Paintings, the Robert Lehman Collection, and on and on it goes.

This is an enormous place, the second-biggest museum in the world, after the Louvre, a building that takes up four city blocks and has more than two million square feet of space. There are treasures everywhere you look: exquisite vases, jewelry, clocks, tapestry, silver and gold, ceramics, baseball cards, Egyptian mummies, sculptures and furniture and paintings. My God, there are paintings, and it is breathtaking to see some of the most famous paintings in the world right here, in front of you, by artists such as Fra Angelico, El Greco, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Constable, van Gogh, Monet. Just name your favorite, and it will be here, a sort of artistic Thousand and One Nights .

All these objects are undeniable jewels, but the more I visited the Museum, the more curious I became about the human component of this institution. Of course one can see the guards and the attendants who work in the gift shops or operate the elevators, but what about the people one doesnt see during a visit, such as the curators? Where are the collectors who give, lend, or bequeath their possessions? What sorts of people are the benefactors and trustees who give of their time and treasure? What sort of person is the director of this place, particularly this long-serving and esteemed director?

That curiosity was the starting point for this book. It could have been any museum I chose to write about, but this place had to be the one. Even though resoundingly large, it is not at all intimidating, and it wasnt long before I began to know my way around and really take in and absorb the extraordinary collections around me. Also, I enjoyed the atmosphere and spirit of the place. I just felt comfortable here.

The adventure started just a short time after I called the Museum to declare my interest in writing about it. I went in and met one or two people in administrative positions, each of whom made welcoming noises. But pretty soon it became clear there was only one person who had the authority to countenance such an intrusion, and that was the director of the Museum, Philippe de Montebello. One sunny early spring morning, I went up to his corner office on the fifth floor, which panoramically overlooks Central Park from two banks of windows, facing south and west. Ah, Mr. Danziger, he said, in his sonorous French accent, you want to write a history of the Metropolitan?