It was cold, but not brutal so we walked across the park to the New York Historical Society, then back across to the Met. Lots of interesting tidbits.
At the Historical Society we saw a short film ‘We Rise’ narrated by Meryl Streep about the role and advancement of woman over the last 100 years. Very emotional and well done.
Then we went through a panoramas exhibit, lots of 360 degree views.
You can see how long this brochure is of the Hudson River.
There was a lovely exhibit of the sketches of Baroness Hyde de Neuville, She was a French woman who came to America after the French Revolution. She is credited with some of the first realistic depictions of Native Americans and also of showing the races here.
And this was part of a larger scene created by matching together smaller photographs, in some places it is seamless, in others there are small mis matches.
At the Met we wandered through a nice little exhibit in the photography wing on our way to the Tisch galleries where there were rooms dedicated to Maximillian I. I had never heard of him until today. He was heavily into family and armor and advancement and is credited with making wide use of the propoganda of pomp and titles to aggrandise himself.
Little jousting 
horse armor
his death portrait 
his portrait
Finally we made it to the exhibit I wanted to see. The plaything and fabulous toys of the rich and famous – Making Marvels – Science and Splendor of the Courts of Europe. One thing more intricate or beautiful than the next… Jewels and carvings and extravagance.
biggest garnet 
Then the scientific – Encoding boxes, magnifiers and all manner of celestial observers.
There were intricate ivory carvings and the tools used to make them
my favorite might have been this.. that rolls uphill. You can see a bit of the slow motion video projected onto the wall in the background.
The exhibit was wonderful. The curators did an amazing job not only on the descriptions and layouts, but for many of the machines they had video projected on the wall showing them at work….
This picture was displayed in a clear box so you could see the workings in back. If you turn the wheel at the back the gears cause parts of the picture to change and voila, you have a new painting.
This astronomical table clock
It seems the courts were in completion, always trying to one up each other and great minds were hard at work making things happen.
The most amazing thing was a series of portraits that when looked at together through something like a small telescope formed one different yet unique portrait… amazing… there is a link to a video on the mets website. With any luck this link will show them all to you.
