New Met gallery

The new Andre Meyer Galleries for 19th-century European paintings and sculpture will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, March 29. For the first time, the Metropolitan will be able to show the great bulk -- 75 percent -- of its holdings in this area, one of the richest such collections in the world.

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan, said, "I believe that the Museum's collection, from David, Ingres and Goya right through Degas will show a breadth, depth and quality unsuspected by many people. The 24,000 square feet in the new galleries more than triples the space we have formerly had available for this work, and we can now show on a regular basis all our important material of this period."