Hidden Treasures: Stories from a Great Museum

About

Every year millions of people visit the Metropolitan Museum, but how many are able to find the secrets and powers hidden in the works of art? Museum staff, who spend their days, and sometimes their nights, restoring, guarding, moving, cleaning, and teaching about the art, reveal some of the magic they have discovered. Their stories include a wish-granting statue, a sword with a secret compartment, a time-traveling melody, a portrait that has become a trusted mentor, a famous landscape with an unexpected population, and rooms and objects that brought joy to a dying woman.

The interviews include personal stories about Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Lucian Freud’s portrait of the performance artist Leigh Bowery, and Ingres’s Princess de Broglie. You will learn about the unusual pigment recipes used to illuminate Medieval manuscripts, assembling a set of Art Deco glass panels from the French luxury liner Normandie, and the human scale in El Greco’s View of Toledo. You‘ll meet a technician who is drawn to the power of a mysterious wooden Mayan figure, and a bronze Ganesha that is credited with getting a young woman the job she longed for – taking care of the statue itself.

Featuring

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Winner

Best Documentary, Southern New England Film Festival