0595 - Art Detectives: The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Course Description
Rachael Goldman, PhD, historian
In recent years, the collecting practices of long-established encyclopedic museums have undergone re-examination. Fine Art and archaeological pieces of historical relevance have recently been considered within the context of their provenance and heritage. Museums now have an even larger watchdog role on the global stage, with responsibilities to document the acquisition process. The Met has embarked on an ambitious project of transparent research and repatriation. Objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, from Turkey and the Ancient Near East, and Ancient India as well as ten works that were appropriated during the Nazi occupation of Europe have been part of the repatriation effort. Nineteen objects originally from the Tomb of King Tutankhamun round out this mission. For all the Met’s efforts more work must be done. We will discuss the importance of the wide-reaching attitudes to museum collecting and the encyclopedic museum.
Dr. Rachael Goldman holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York-Graduate Center in History. She is the author of “Color-Terms in a Social and Cultural Context in Ancient Rome” published by Gorgias Press. She has studied at the Summer Classical School at the American Academy in Rome and won awards from the New York Classical School. She has been published in the journal Glotta, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, the Classical Journal, the Renaissance Quarterly and the Decorative Arts Journal of the Bard Graduate Center. She has taught at Adelphi University, the College of New Jersey, Rutgers College, and at various schools in City University of New York. She completed the Sotheby’s American Fine and Decorative Arts course, and began her career as an appraiser, cataloguing the Asia and Jacobo Furman Judaica Collection. As a specialist for Bonhams, she ushered in the first Judaica sale. Rachael is a certified member of the Appraisers Association of America.