Narrator: Medieval Christian church paintings helped focus worshippers’ prayers, and told stories – especially important when most people couldn’t read. 

In this Italian painting, figures around the crucified Christ react with strong emotion. To the left, Christ’s mother Mary, dressed in blue, faints in distress. Curator Isabella Lores-Chavez: 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: And behind her is one of the most expressive figures in the whole composition - this figure of Mary Magdalene with her arms raised in despair. She's really conveying such suffering and such anguish.  

Narrator: Real gold leaf is used for haloes and background. Imagine how it would’ve gleamed in the candlelight. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: The gold really serves to create a sense of this very precious spiritual depiction. 

Narrator: Even more expensive would have been the lapis lazuli stone used to create the brilliant blue of Mary’s robe. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: And lapis lazuli came from Afghanistan and from other parts of Central Asia. So it's a really great reminder of how interconnected Europe was with other parts of the world already in the Middle Ages. 

Narrator: The painting was originally part of a much bigger altarpiece. Made of many different panels, its smaller scenes helped illustrate Christ’s life - a bit like a graphic novel sequence.

Narrator: Look closely at this lion, and you’ll see that his tail curves up to form a handle, and his mouth contains a spout!  He was filled with water through the discreet little flap on his head.

This type of vessel is called an aquamanile, from the Latin for water and hands. It was used to wash guests’ hands before and after a banquet, or perhaps during a church ritual.

With roots in Iranian Islamic culture, aquamaniles arrived in Europe through trade and conquest. The concept of a special handwashing vessel was eagerly taken up and Europeans began making their own versions. This 13th century lion was created in the city of Hildesheim, in what we’d call Germany today.

With shared dishes and few utensils, handwashing was important. A splendid bronze vessel also showed off your wealth and good taste. This lion draws inspiration from ancient Roman sculpture. And as in Roman times, medieval Europeans saw the lion as a symbol of strength and bravery. Lions often featured on royal and aristocratic coats of arms. And knights in medieval courtly poems were often described as “lion-hearted”.

Fraiman: The magnificent ceiling above your head is a truly special object.

Narrator: That’s curator Jeffrey Fraiman.

Fraiman: The ceiling comes from a palace that belonged to a very important couple who were extremely close to the Spanish royal family.

Narrator: In the 1490s, the Cárdenas family built a palace just outside the Spanish capital of Toledo. Their golden ceiling has elements that reflect both their own Catholic, aristocratic background and Muslim traditions.

Family shields appear at the center of each wall panel, featuring little gold shells that continue as a border all around the ceiling. They symbolize Christ’s follower St James, who was a fisherman. Meanwhile, the ceiling’s interlocking geometric patterns are directly drawn from Islamic design. And the beautiful, ridged fan shapes at each corner resemble shells too. But they also recall the honeycomb niches of Islamic interiors.

The Spanish monarchs who governed the northern Iberian Peninsula spent centuries trying to gain control of the south from its Muslim rulers. And in 1492, right around the time this ceiling was made, the Spanish army brutally drove out the last Muslim ruler. Many Muslims were killed or expelled from the country. Those who stayed were forcibly converted to Catholicism.

The whole of Spain and its different peoples were now under the Spanish monarchs’ control. And evidently, their courtiers’ love of Islamic design was too deeply rooted to be given up.

Poet and former museum teacher devorah major:

Major: This is a very short poem that I wrote when I was teaching in the galleries. 

15th century ceiling:

lost history suspended

reflecting family, faith, reflecting family, faith

allah intertwined with christ, allah intertwined with christ

golden arcs swirl wealth, power 

lost history suspended. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: We have here a scene of the adoration of the Magi or the three Wise Men, who have come to worship the newly born Christ child. 

Narrator: Curator Isabella Lores-Chavez. The Wise Men wear lavish robes and gold accessories, and bring gifts for the newborn Christ, sitting on his mother Mary’s lap.

Isabella Lores-Chavez: One of the things that I love so much about this painting is that //we also see another figure on the right who is kneeling with his hands in prayer.  

Narrator: That’s the wealthy Spanish patron who paid artist Rodrigo de Osona to make the painting. This was around the turn of the 1500s - when Spain was aggressively seeking to conquer territories and nations overseas. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: That ship in the background is really a reference to how this territorial expansion takes place through voyages that are being funded by the Spanish monarchs to the Americas.

Narrator: The Wise Man to the left, Balthazar, is shown as an African king. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: With this kind of territorial expansion and access to other parts of the world came the movement of people. Suddenly we have the presence of more and more Africans in Europe. That said, there had already been an African presence in Europe in the Middle Ages, partly through the kind of interconnected trade with other continents, particularly Asia and Africa.

Depicting Balthazar as an African king  is both this signal to the viewer that the kings have traveled from afar. But it's also a kind of argument for how these indigenous populations and conquered people - in the eyes of these Catholic monarchs - were supposedly amenable to being converted to Christianity.  

Narrator: The most important people in this painting, as you probably guessed, are in the center: the Virgin Mary, and her baby son Jesus.   

The lion peeking in at lower left points to the identity of the older man beside him. According to legend, the lion became St Jerome’s devoted friend after he pulled a thorn from its paw. We can often identify saints by symbols like this. For St Bartholomew to the right, it’s the bloody knife in his hand - he was flayed alive for being Christian.

Originally hung in a church, the painting was made by Raffaellino del Garbo in 1502 in Florence, Italy – then a wealthy city-state. It would have been very costly, especially as it features the vivid ultramarine blue for Mary’s skirt made from precious ground lapis lazuli stone. 

The painting was made at the height of the Renaissance, a cultural shift born in Florence. Chief Curator Emily Beeny: 

Emily Beeny: So when we talk about the Renaissance, we're using a word that means rebirth. And by that we really mean a rebirth of interest in classical antiquity. And I think one of the hallmarks of that is a new kind of naturalism, a desire to make works of art that convince us of their reality. 

Narrator: On a nearby wall, a ceramic piece shows Mary and Jesus surrounded by green leaves and yellow lemons. Sharing a sensibility with the painting, it was made around the same time, also in Florence, by the famous della Robbia family workshop. 

Emily Beeny: There is an amazing illusionism to this whole object, that encourages us to feel as though we could reach out and pluck a lemon, or, you know, caress the cheek of the little infant Christ.  I think we sense the spiritual purpose that this kind of illusionism was meant to serve, in forging a more direct and human connection between the onlooker and the Holy Figures represented. 

Narrator: Bianca Maselli was a noblewoman living in Rome in 1604, when this extraordinary portrait was painted. Chief Curator Emily Beeny: 

Emily Beeny: And she's portrayed with six of her nineteen children, at the age of probably about thirty-six or thirty-seven. We don't know the names of all of the children represented, though we do know the name of the little toddler who clings to her mother's index finger and then holds the puppy's paw very tenderly - that's Virginia Maselli. 

Narrator: These may be the only six of Bianca’s nineteen children to survive at this point. 

Emily Beeny: My favorite passage in the picture is the three little boys at right, who really seem to be up to something!

Narrator: One holds a quill pen and inkwell – perhaps indicating his studious nature. And the little dog symbolizes faithfulness.  

Emily Beeny: Many women wished to have a portraitist underscore the virtue of fidelity as chief among their wifely achievements. 

Narrator: The portrait is by Lavinia Fontana, who, like most women artists at this time, trained in her father’s studio. 

Emily Beeny: She's especially good at portraying rich sumptuous textiles, as you can see here in all that amazing sort of velvet, brocade and silk and handmade lace, and also very good at jewelry.  

Narrator: Fontana built a successful career while raising eleven children, partly because her husband gave up his own artistic practice to help run her studio. 

Emily Beeny: Their marriage contract stipulates that her artistic career is to continue after their wedding and that she is going to be exempted from normal household duties in order to pursue her art. It's vanishingly rare, breathtakingly rare, but one understands how essential it was to get that down in writing, in order to secure what was at that time a really unusual privilege for a woman.

Narrator: Leaning forward in prayer, St Francis of Assisi gazes with devotion at the carved image of Christ on the cross. The skull beneath it symbolizes death, and therefore a reminder to live a virtuous life. Born into a wealthy family in 12th century Italy, Francis experienced a spiritual transformation as a young man. He renounced his worldly goods and devoted his life to Christ, eventually founding the Franciscan order of monks. Like him, they took vows of chastity and poverty and went out to spread the word of Christ.

This portrayal of the saint was made around 1595 by El Greco. Originally from Crete, he had moved to Spain in search of work, becoming known as “El Greco”, meaning “the Greek”. His Spanish patrons were interested in finding a direct relationship with God, which is perfectly evoked by this portrayal of St Francis. Curator Isabella Lores Chavez:

Lores-Chavez: El Greco's paintings often look like they are being acted upon by forces beyond our human control. His brushstrokes are flickering across the surface of the canvas, almost like a modern abstract painter. And part of it is a way to communicate that mystical energy that seems to be surging through these religious figures that he depicts.

Narrator: This wooden sculpture aims to make us feel we’re almost in the presence of a Christian saint - Francis of Assisi. His lifelike glass eyes gleam, and his monk’s habit, tied with a rope belt, is carved to resemble woven cloth. According to the saint’s legend, his chest wound appeared miraculously, resembling marks on Christ’s crucified body. The sculpture was intended to move those who saw it in 17th century Catholic Spain, deepening their faith.

St Francis founded the proselytizing Franciscan order of monks in the early 1300s. It quickly became part of the Catholic power structure, including in its colonies in Mexico – and California. This city is named for St Francis, after the Spanish mission established here in the 1770s. Feel free to take a seat or to explore other works nearby, while you continue to listen.

Cordero: Hello everyone, my name is Jonathan Cordero. I’m the chair of the Ramaytush Tribe – we’re the original peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula. I am executive director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, I'm an ethnohistorian and an expert on California Indian history during the Mission period.

The Franciscan missionaries were the primary agents of colonization in California, responsible for removing California Indians from their ancestral villages. California Indians were enslaved for the purposes of building the Mission and raising crops, so they supplied the settlers and the Spanish military as well. The Spanish military created a culture of terror and intimidation that held people in place. Also, the Spanish brought up cattle and the cattle would eat the food stuffs - the grasses and the flowers and plants - that the Native peoples used for seed gathering, so effectively reduced their food supply.

Prior to colonization, the Ramaytush Ohlone numbered about 2000 on the San Francisco Peninsula. By the end of the Mission period in roughly 1834, only about 34 persons had survived.

That doesn't mean that our ancestors didn't resist. But for the most part it was complete control and near complete destruction of our people and our culture and our language. And today we have maybe 200 words from our original language left. And that's it. It's really sad and it's incredibly unfortunate. And we're trying to rebuild our community, and thankfully we have other California Indian traditions - so we're using those traditions to rebuild ourselves.

Narrator: It’s probably safe to say that most of us can’t imagine living with an enormous, elaborate piece of furniture like this. And that’s the point. It wasn’t made to fit in with everyday life. It was designed to astound those who saw it with its magnificence, and to convey messages about regal power and purpose.

The scene on the upper right, topped by a wide arch, shows rulers from the Hebrew Bible: King Solomon, famous for his wisdom, greeting the Queen of Sheba. In the center is David, Israelite hero and King, with his enemy Goliath’s head underfoot. These illustrations of royal strength and good judgment are one hint that the cabinet was created for a royal patron.  

Another clue is the cabinet’s extremely costly craftsmanship and materials. It’s made from ebony, probably brought to Europe from India. As well as the intricate exterior carvings, it has a lavish interior decorated with colorful semi-precious stones, and drawers for holding valuable documents and objects.

The cabinet was made by Pierre Gole, furniture maker to the French court, around 1650. France had then been without a ruling King for sixteen years, since the death of Louis XIII. His widow, Anne, took power until her young son Louis XIV came of age – and it was a challenging time. So this opulent cabinet, with its scenes of royal power and status – including the portrayal of a biblical queen - may well have been made for Anne herself.

Narrator: Leaning out over the crowd hanging on his every word, St John the Baptist gestures urgently toward a ray of light splitting the stormy sky. According to the Biblical New Testament, John foretold the coming of Jesus Christ, son of God. Chief Curator Emily Beeny:

Emily Beeny: There's a real theatricality to the lighting, to the positioning of the viewer, to the billow of the draperies, to the dramatic movement of St. John's body. I think really some of these effects are quite literally borrowed from the theater. 

Narrator: John’s astounding message is shown by his finger, pointing up to heaven. And the banner on his staff announces in Latin: “Behold the Lamb of God”. Christ, whose life would be sacrificed to redeem his followers, is often represented by a lamb. A real lamb held by someone in the crowd emphasizes the symbolism. The painting makes us feel like we’re part of that crowd. 

Emily Beeny: It's really a picture that wants to sweep us up into its action.

Narrator: Made by Italian artist Mattia Preti around 1665, it’s a wonderful example of Baroque art, full of drama and emotion. Art was often used as a powerful tool by the Catholic church at this time to fight back against the spread of Protestantism.

Emily Beeny: The desire of the Catholic Church to enlist the senses of the faithful in spiritual experience - this is a picture that responds to that new mandate, to make us feel as though we are physically in the presence of this holy figure. 

Narrator: This painting of the magnificent church at the mouth of the Grand Canal in Venice was made around 1750, by Venetian artist Canaletto. He was known for his precisely pictured views of the city, often purchased by “grand tourists” from England, like William Holbech. Chief Curator Emily Beeny:  

Emily Beeny: Like so many wealthy Englishmen of the 18th century, he undertook a journey to and through Italy, hitting its major cultural sites and the same places of cultural pilgrimage that tourists flock to, today. 

Narrator: And just as we do, the Grand Tourists brought objects back to England –paintings, drawings, and sometimes ancient sculptures.  

Emily Beeny: On the one hand they were souvenirs; on the other hand, they were also a way of displaying one's knowledge and worldliness. 

Narrator: 18th century England, with its fast-growing economy and empire, increasingly saw itself as a world leader. 

Emily Beeny: So I think there's a little bit of a sense of demonstrating that all the world and all of the finest things of Europe, particularly, can belong to Englishmen.  

Narrator: This particular painting was made in London, rather than Venice. Some years after his Grand Tour, Holbech, back at home, heard Canaletto was visiting London. He commissioned this Venetian scene to hang in his country mansion. 

Emily Beeny: What I find poignant about this project is that it means this is a picture that isn't so much about Venice, it's about the experience of missing Venice, both for the middle-aged ex-grand tourist, and perhaps for Canaletto himself, living so far from home, under the gray skies of England. I think/the extraordinary blue and pink confectionary sky probably would not have been painted in Venice - it's a little bit of a sort of rosy, imaginary version.

Narrator: Originally made for Queen Marie Antoinette – later executed during the French Revolution – this sofa dates from happier days for the queen, when she lived at the magnificent palace of Versailles. 

Around 1779, Marie Antoinette ordered this “Turkish sofa” or daybed, for her private salon, or sitting room. Unlike the stiff, upright seating of previous generations, the latest furnishings offered seductive comfort, opulence and luxury. Europeans ascribed these attributes to “Turkish” style. The sofa’s wooden frame features flowers. They symbolize springtime and perhaps the mood of twenty-four-year old Marie Antoinette, who’d finally given birth to a daughter and hoped for a son.

In the end, the sofa was used elsewhere in the palace. But its recent restoration, complete with embroidered spring flowers, transforms it into something we can imagine gracing the queen’s lavish salon. A lady-in-waiting described a Sunday morning at Versailles:

Character voice (woman): A few minutes before midday, the ladies entered the salon - at least forty people. We were very closely packed for our hooped skirts took up a great deal of room. As soon as the queen had greeted each of us, we stood to the right and left so she could pass on her way to Mass. The queen showed herself a little jealous of those young ladies who could bring to the hard light of noon, a complexion more dazzling than her own. I was one of them. And once when she was passing through the door, a duchess whispered in my ear, do not stand facing the windows. However, the queen was usually very kind to me.

Narrator: An extraordinary inlaid cabinet. Fine Japanese porcelain. And lavishly gilded figures. A royal or aristocratic residence in late 17th century France would often display luxury pieces like these – often including objects or materials from other cultures.

Let’s zoom in to investigate – starting with the porcelain. Japan was closed to most western trade at this time, so this would have been very rare – and expensive. What’s more, western artisans didn’t know how to produce porcelain yet – making Japanese pieces even more valuable.

The cabinet and gilded figures were made in France. But they have connections to the wider world through French colonization of overseas territories. For instance, the imported ivory, tortoiseshell, ebony and mahogany used in the cabinet’s design were quite possibly taken from newly established French colonies in India and Senegal, West Africa.

In North America, France exploited rivalries between Native Americans to capitalize on the fur trade. Back in France, artists characterized Native Americans as warlike people, wearing feathers. These gilded figures resemble little European children. But their feathered headdresses and skirts play with those stereotypes of Native Americans. They point to the French desire to control resources, territories and people across the world, as they appropriated elements of other cultures as a decorative fantasy.

Narrator: What was it like to be an aristocratic visitor to a Parisian mansion in the late 1700s? Let’s enter the Salon Doré, or Gilded Salon, and find out…  

Take a good look around as you listen. The room was created as part of a French duke’s Paris mansion in 1781. Decorated in the very height of style, its gilded columns and swags of leaves and flowers recall the grandeur of ancient Rome. Its blue and white silk draperies and chairs were a daring choice – red was usual for reception rooms.

Around 5pm was the proper hour to pay calls at this time. How were visitors dressed? Let’s ask Madame de la Tour du Pin, who wrote about her life in just such a household:

Character voice (woman): The ladies' fashions of that day were a form of torture: narrow heels of three inches which kept the foot as if standing on tiptoe, and hair dressed at least a foot high, sprinkled with a pound of powder and pomade, crowned by a bonnet with feathers, flowers, and diamonds. Gentlemen, on the other hand, wore a dress coat, embroidered or plain.   

Narrator: The arrangement of chairs wouldn’t seem at all strange in those days - salons were not a place of relaxation, but a setting for elegant, witty conversation. The hostess sat near the fireplace, with women taking a seat around her. Men often remained standing. Sometimes a visitor read aloud from a fashionable new book, or backgammon tables might be set up. But however thirsty you became with all this talking -

Character voice (woman): It was absolutely impolite to ask for a drink.

Narrator: - according to a woman known as “the oracle of good taste”. And no eating either – you’d have to wait for supper served in the dining room at 9.30pm – if invited. Here’s the low-down:

Character voice (woman): A list of supper guests was a most important and carefully considered item. There were so many people to bring together, so many others to be kept apart. And what a social disaster for a husband to consider himself invited to a house simply because his wife was invited! One needed a very profound knowledge of society - and the current intrigues.

Narrator: Let’s tiptoe quietly out, thankful that we are not this French baron:

Character voice (man): It was no meager skill to leave a salon where thirty men and women were seated in a circle around the fire, managing a dress coat, a wig of thirty-six curls powdered like snow, a hat under one arm, a sword whose point touched one heel, and finally - an enormous fur muff. 

Narrator: Without its surface designs, this would be a useful but unremarkable English desk. Its colorful decorations make it extraordinary - and tell some interesting stories about the 18th century European fascination with Chinese art and Asian techniques.

Wealthy Europeans saw China as an enchanting, mysterious place, buying Chinese porcelain, painted wallpapers and silks. European craftspeople quickly began producing imitation “Chinese” objects, finding it profitable to appropriate and commodify the designs and techniques of another culture for their patrons.  

The desk was given layers of red, resin-based varnish. Even though Chinese lacquer was common, the English called this “japanning” - Europeans often didn’t distinguish between different Asian cultures. However, they must have been aware of Japanese lacquer work, although Japan was then closed to most western contact. Meanwhile, the painted decorations copy Chinese designs, with figures among birds, trees and rocks.

Unlike most 18th century English people, architect Sir William Chambers actually visited China, and published a book describing what he’d seen. His comments on Chinese gardens resonate with the desk’s designs, even though they’re a distant echo of the real thing:

Character voice (male): The Chinese collect all kinds of extraordinary trees, plants, and flowers, and different sorts of fantastical birds and animals. You are struck with the view of a delicious landscape, enriched with everything that luxuriant nature affords most beautiful.

Narrator: If you were a British aristocrat in the 18th or 19th century, your art collections were designed to display your wealth, taste and superior education. And a sense that, with the growth of the British empire, the world was at your fingertips.

Collections often included paintings and antique sculptures purchased while traveling in Italy. Gemstones and minerals added an element of science. Made around 1800, this Italian table combines a little of each category. Using techniques dating back to antiquity, valuable hardstones are combined with extraordinary artisanship into a patterned mosaic, set into white marble. Curator Jeffrey Fraiman:

Fraiman: Though made over 200 years ago, there's something remarkably fresh and abstract about this work. Everything was carefully planned beforehand - the placement of every single stone, every single color, the symmetry, the visual effects of the rhythm of placement of the stones across the tabletop. 

Part of the delight of these tables would be learned connoisseurs looking at them and contemplating the different stones - where they came from, how precious, how rare they were. The stones here were sourced from all over the globe, including places like Egypt, Afghanistan, Greece, Germany, and parts of Italy itself.

Narrator: Behind the façade of splendor created by pieces like this, often lay ominous circumstances. A few years after it was made, this table was purchased by Lord Stewart, later Lord Londonderry, who became infamous for his cruel repression of the Irish people, especially during the Great Famine of the 1840s. 

Narrator: Having your portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds was a little like being featured on the cover of Vogue magazine. Not only could a Reynolds portrait dazzle your visitors at home – it would often also be exhibited at London’s Royal Academy of Art – where it was seen by all of high society. 

This painting shows Anne, Viscountess Townsend, who grew up in Dublin, Ireland. Chief Curator Emily Beeny: 

Emily Beeny: She was one of three sisters born into a family whose wealth came from provisioning the British occupying army. And she ultimately married the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Townsend, who was basically the official who presided over the British colony in Ireland.

Narrator: Known for creating flattering, glamorous images, Reynolds emphasizes Anne’s status and beauty. She leans on a stone pedestal carved with a scene from Greek mythology. It shows a prince judging a beauty contest between three goddesses. 

Emily Beeny: What's interesting is that we really only see two of those three goddesses, so I think there's maybe some suggestion that the third goddess is the sitter herself. 

Narrator: Classical education – and collecting pieces of ancient sculpture – were a big part of 18th century British aristocratic identity, and Reynolds also portrays Anne wearing a dress suggesting classical robes. Her velvet and ermine cape would be worn to a royal coronation. And family estates, a foundation of power in British society, are evoked by the sweeping landscape in the background.

Emily Beeny: The grand scale of it made this approach to portraiture very well suited to new rising classes in England, that were maybe moving from more mercantile backgrounds like that of the sitter's father, into the aristocratic elite, to which her husband belonged. So these are portraits for the socially ambitious as well. 

A century and a half later, objects like this one also flattered the social aspirations of a new rising global elite, namely American millionaires of the Gilded Age. 

Narrator: Portraits like this were avidly collected -  

Emily Beeny: - especially by Californians of the early 20th century, whose fortunes were new and who were in the market for ancestors.

Narrator: Artist Peter Paul Rubens built an incredibly successful career in the seventeenth century, eventually working for royal courts around Europe. In his artistic toolkit were color, movement and emotion, which he combined brilliantly to unfold vivid stories before our eyes. 

Here, Christ, in red, is confronted by a hostile group of Pharisees. They ask, should the Jews pay taxes to their Roman overlords, or is their loyalty due to God alone? It’s a trap. Denouncing the Romans may result in his death. But Christ responds simply and calmly. He points to a coin featuring Caesar’s head, saying “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God, the things that are God’s”. 

Curator Isabella Lores-Chavez: 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: By depicting Christ in this way, Rubens is really showing you exactly his words, translated into an image. Meanwhile, you have the reactions from the Pharisees and they’re variations on shock and even outrage. Rubens was a master draftsman, which meant that he spent so much time drawing faces and bodies and hands and feet to really understand how to capture a very individualized, very lifelike figure. And this was often done through the use of models. 

Narrator: Rubens deepened his expertise in giving his work a sense of life and realism on a trip to Italy, where he studied Renaissance art and ancient classical sculpture. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: And I think this painting really gives us a peek into his versatility in one single composition. So yes, he's certainly a master at controlling our attention. 

Narrator: Dressed in gold and blue, Sarah joins hands with Tobias. The story of their marriage comes from the Hebrew Bible. But Dutch 17th century artist Jan Steen sets it in a prosperous Dutch household of his own time.  

Interestingly, many things in the scene come from outside the Dutch Republic - like the sunflowers above Sarah’s head, imported from the Americas. Curator Isabella Lores-Chavez:

Isabella Lores-Chavez: And then at the right we see a little boy picking oranges out of a porcelain bowl. These came from the Mediterranean, and the porcelain bowl is typical of the sorts of porcelain dishes that were imported in huge quantities from China and Japan.

Narrator: Beneath the bowl is a chintz textile from India. And the central table is covered with a precious Turkish carpet.

Isabella Lores-Chavez: These imported goods are really a way for elites in the Dutch Republic to distinguish themselves as refined collectors and consumers of the riches of other nations that they have access to because of the extremely successful trade relations that the Dutch have established by this point.

Another way that Steen really turns this biblical story into a contemporary story is the figure of the notary who is drafting the marriage contract for the parents to review.

Narrator: That’s the man with the tall black hat – actually the artist’s self portrait. Steen also introduces typically 17th century moral meaning. The dog represents fidelity. And the hanging birdcage?

Isabella Lores-Chavez: - This is a typical Dutch symbol of marriage, a caged bird to symbolize a woman who is in the virtuous bounds of marriage.

Narrator: The painting’s sense of realism had a profound effect on Edward Smalarz, a museum security guard and an artist.

Smalarz: The little purple pillow there - I was immediately drawn to that and then my eye was just drawn down to the dog. It's kind of just enough light on it so you can see it, but the shadows make this beautiful glaze in the little eyes with the opaque dots. It got me inspired too, as well – to go home and compose my first real painting from observation, real life.

Narrator: Curator Isabella Lores-Chavez: 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: This portrait by Rembrandt may be my very favorite Dutch painting in the collection - and it's a really special one. Rembrandt became a very, very successful painter in Amsterdam, but this painting comes from a moment before he's become really famous. 

Narrator: By the early 17th century, portraits were no longer reserved only for royalty or aristocracy. This man, Joris de Caullery, was an innkeeper. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: He's dressed in the yellow tunic of an officer because he served on his city's volunteer militia, and he's got a sword, attached to a kind of sash. He's got this piece of armor around his neck and he's holding a musket. So here is a man who is really trying to fashion himself as a respectable citizen, asking to be painted by a very young man who's at the outset of his career. 

Narrator: The young artist is already incredibly accomplished at capturing a sense of character and individuality. 

Isabella Lores-Chavez: Rembrandt manipulates light so subtly to give us a sense of really standing in front of a real person - Joris’s eyes, I find totally captivating. This pose with the elbow jutting out, it's a typical 17th century pose that conveys confidence, that conveys self-assurance, and it's also very cleverly a way for Rembrandt to create an illusion of three dimensions. 

Joris will go on to have a naval career actually, but at this point, he's this innkeeper who really wants to show off his civic duty. And Rembrandt is really hustling - he's really at the beginning of his career, saying yes to everything and making a name for himself.

Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny: 

Emily Beeny: Jacques Linard, French painter active in the 1620s and 1630s, painted almost nothing but seashells. We see the shells of lots of different species - the sort of crusty, spiny freckled exteriors, and then the smooth, nacreous insides. I think Linard helps us understand what he and his contemporaries found most marvelous about these objects, which would of course have been gathered on the shores of the Pacific, of the Indian Ocean, of corners of the globe that Linard himself would never have visited.

Such objects became avidly collected in the 17th century by Europeans both as sources of knowledge and understanding about the natural world and as objects of aesthetic wonderment. 

Narrator: Beautiful as they are, there’s a brutal side to their story. 

Emily Beeny: Many of these objects would never have found their way to Europe, were it not for the kinds of trade networks that also involved enslavement, tremendous environmental destruction, exploitation of people and of natural resources – a lot of the really dark transformations wrought by European global exploration and colonization in the period - so the transfer of these natural wonders to European shores was not without violence. 

Narrator: Set against a stormy sky, her hair cascading over bare shoulders, this woman is portrayed more informally than was usual in 1791. Partly that’s because she herself was unconventional. Hyacinthe Roland had been a Parisian actress. She was now a mother of several children with a British aristocrat, and not yet married to him. 

But it’s also because of the remarkable artist, Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun.  In 1791, both women were in Rome along with others fleeing the French Revolution. Back in Paris, the royal family was already in prison, awaiting execution.

Chief curator Emily Beeny:

Beeny: The reason why Vigee needs to get out of town at the beginning of the Revolution is that she was the official painter to Queen Marie Antoinette.

Vigée-Le Brun was the most highly paid portraitist in France in the years before the Revolution. She was a major celebrity, she was a rare female member of the French Academy. And I think was particularly good at striking up intimacies with her female sitters that allowed her to draw out individual character in a very special way.

Narrator: Poet devorah major:

Major: And that's really what Vigée-Le Brun was known for - she wanted to not do these stiff portraits of women, but rather to reflect the way a woman was, you know, in her truth. I think that that is what Vigée-Le Brun captured in this: that this woman is a free spirit.

Narrator: This majestic bed was made for Prince Talleyrand – among the most intriguing figures in French history. Poet and former gallery teacher Kim Shuck:

Shuck: He’s been described as a genius – just a fascinating human being, and somebody who was born to privilege, who in a time where privilege was being vehemently rejected, managed to survive a series of events that killed off most of his peers.

Narrator: These events included the French Revolution. Talleyrand, a wily politician, avoided the execution or exile that awaited many of his fellow aristocrats by working for the Revolutionary administration.  Later, he helped bring Napoleon to power – and then engineer his downfall.  

The bed is made for splendor, not for comfort – or privacy. Royal and aristocratic power-brokers at the time received favored guests in a state bedroom in their palace or chateau. An opulent bed stood in as a kind of throne. They would usually sleep in smaller, private apartments elsewhere.

Shuck: That is an object that’s about being seen. This is absolutely a statement of the power to control the narrative, the power to control the resources.

Narrator: Such a bed was an opportunity to display wealth as well as authority. The silk draperies in particular would have been extremely costly. And the gilded bedframe includes sphinx heads beside the pillows. These recall Napoleon’s Egyptian military campaigns – Talleyrand was then still his valued advisor.

Narrator: French artist Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux made this bronze sculpture of a man around 1872. He used an unidentified model from the small Chinese community then living in Paris. Curator Jeffrey Fraiman:

Fraiman: Part of what makes the figure feel so present, so immediate, is the sensitivity with which Carpeaux portrayed his features.

Narrator: Jade Ichimura works in the Museums’ education department as an interpretation and outreach associate.

Ichimura: As somebody who is Japanese American, seeing another person who also has similar features, in this museum, was an immediate point for me. When you see a bust in a museum of a non-European person from the 1800s, you'd usually expect that they would be shown in some very blatantly exoticizing way, but he doesn't really appear that way to me. However, when you learn more about the bronze, those narratives do come up, unfortunately. 

Narrator: Carpeaux included the braid, or queue, that at this time was mandatory for all men in China.

Ichimura: By the 19th and 20th  centuries, the queue became a feature that people recognized as Chinese, and became almost a caricature for some people.

Narrator: - and the sculpture’s title, “The Chinese Man”, seems to deny its sense of the man’s individuality. The artist sold multiple copies of this piece.

Fraiman: The success of these compositions testified to the interest in 19th century Europe for images of the “other”.

Carpeaux modeled this figure for a larger project, a fountain he was commissioned to make, showing the four parts of the world – this figure representing “Asia”.

Narrator: But the fountain figures were planned as women. So, having created this head using his male model, Carpeaux then attached it to a woman’s body, for the fountain’s full-length figure.

Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny:

Emily Beeny: This picture is meant to evoke the private interior of a harem - a part of the household reserved for women in various corners of the Ottoman Empire.  But it is really the product of fantasy and stereotype.

Narrator: Jean-Léon Gérôme painted the picture around 1885. He traveled widely in North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean – but would never have had access to this kind of space in reality.

Sebihi: Upon seeing this for the first time, I do think there's an intuitive sense of discomfort - the fact that these women are in a bathhouse; there's a dark-skinned woman who is washing a seated white woman. 

Narrator: That’s Melika Sebihi, who works in interpretation here at the Museums.

Sebihi: I studied Middle Eastern art history in school, and I myself am North African, so I'm really interested in portrayals of the Middle East. A lot of portrayals were through this very colonial lens and from a viewpoint where the artist was very much othering what they were seeing.

Narrator: Orientalism refers to a movement in which, following European colonialism, western artists and writers thought about and represented the “Orient” in stereotypical, sexualized and patronizing ways.

Gerome used objects and photographs collected on his travels, to stage scenes like this in his Paris studio. And the women he portrays as bather and attendant were likely paid models from the white working-class and Black French-Caribbean communities in Paris.

Emily Beeny: His skill as an illusionistic painter is part of what persuaded his contemporaries of the accuracy of what is in fact a total fantasy and a studio concoction.

Narrator: Dressed in white, this Russian bride is surrounded by family as her hair is brushed out in preparation for her wedding. She will wear two braids around her head, covered by a headdress – never again the single braid of the unmarried girl. She looks down, perhaps at her sister, with emotion. Here’s Galina Epifanova:  

Epifanova: I'm a specialist of Russian culture and Russian philosophy.

The bride is sad, since she will never return to her family. And she doesn't know what her life will be like now - and most often, she didn't know her groom, because the marriage was arranged by her parents.

Narrator: The painting was made by Konstantin Makovsky in 1889. It sets the scene in a Boyar, or noble, household, two hundred years earlier.

Epifanova: This part of the house was intended only for women and small children up to seven years old.

Narrator: As well as dressing the bride, an important ritual was the singing of wedding laments - a farewell to freedom. Here are some words from one traditional song:

Epifanova: My dear mother, have pity on me, mother, as you used to. I don't want to get married - after all, I'm still so young.

Narrator: Makovsky creates a sense of colorful magnificence and history with the women’s costumes and ceremonial headdresses, or kokoshniks. But actually there’s some artistic license here. The headdresses, with their many shapes, were from different Russian regions and wouldn’t have been worn by a single family. And a bride of the 1600s wore red or gold – white was for burial shrouds. But by the late nineteenth century, white had become fashionable for brides in Russia as well as the west, where Makovsky exhibited the painting to great acclaim.

Narrator: The dove and raven we see here have been sent out by Noah from his Ark in the biblical story. Since the great flood sent by God is finally receding, their mission is to find dry land.

The painting was made by English artist John Martin in 1840, a time of new scientific discoveries about the natural world. Take a closer look at the tidepool.  Chief Curator Emily Beeny:

Emily Beeny: There are a few discernible specific species of shellfish and creatures around the edges. This is a moment when Darwin is engaged in the research that will eventually become “On the Origin of Species” - which will of course, contradict, in many ways, the story of the Flood. So it's an interesting moment of kind of intersection of a biblical story and a nascent scientific discourse.

Narrator: Local artist Jennie Smith teaches at the museum. Her own work is often rooted in drawing the natural world.  

Smith: I've always been excited by the ways in which I see the artist is using the brush, from the long sweeping brush strokes that depict the waves receding, to the meticulous line work along the coast - it's almost like he was using the brush as a pencil.

I'm thinking about global warming and the environmental crisis we're experiencing. And I see in this painting, the artist taking the time to connect with nature, in a way that seems imperative for us today. And reminding us to slow down and actually look closely at the world around you.

Monet character voice: It took me some time to understand my water lilies. And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From this moment, I have had almost no other model.

Narrator: Claude Monet moved his family from the Paris suburbs to a house in the northern French countryside, thirty years before he made this painting. The garden he created there became the beloved subject of his work for the rest of his long life. This is one of many paintings of his water garden. It’s inspired by the Japanese prints he loved and collected. He wrote:

Monet character voice: The crucial thing is the mirror of water, whose appearance changes constantly with the reflections of the sky.

Narrator: Monet probably began the painting in the spring of 1914. He was emerging from grief following the deaths of his wife and son, into a new burst of hope and creativity.

Monet character voice: I am working at full speed, and no matter what the weather, I paint.

Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny:

Emily Beeny: What I love about this painting is that the waterlilies and the cloud seem to occupy the same surface.

Narrator: This perspective may partly come from looking down from the little Japanese bridge Monet had built over the pond, but also because he would continue working on canvases in his studio, sometimes for years.

Emily Beeny: If we were to look at an X-ray of this painting, it would look like a snowstorm because of how many times he repainted, revisited.

Narrator: Over the years he worked on the painting, World War I was being fought nearby – sometimes so close that he could hear guns booming.

Emily Beeny: And I think it's so interesting to think about that terrible conflict raging at the very moment when he is painting this picture of tremendous tranquility and literal reflection.

Narrator: The Eiffel Tower in Paris – then the tallest human-made structure in the world – was almost completed when Georges Seurat made this painting in 1889. Chief Curator Emily Beeny:

Emily Beeny: Seurat gives us an image of the tower in the process of becoming, not yet fully constructed, and in a way dissolving into Seurat’s signature network of dots and dashes of color.

Narrator: Seurat was fascinated by modern scientific discoveries about how the eyes and brain process color. But he was also drawn to the timelessness of art of the past. As were a group of prominent French artists and writers, who saw the Eiffel Tower as the triumph of engineering over artistry. And perhaps Seurat’s painting, too, contains a sense of ambivalence.

Emily Beeny: It's totally possible to see it as a celebration of this extraordinary achievement of modernity. And yet we watch it, even as it's being built, seem somehow to evaporate into constituent points of color and light.

Narrator: The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World’s Fair. Feel free to explore other paintings in the gallery as you keep listening, to hear some recent discoveries about its connections with French colonial history.

Emily Beeny: The financing of the Eiffel Tower was secured through a private bank that was making most of its income off of the sovereign debt of Haiti.

Narrator: Haiti was a French colony until its enslaved people overthrew their brutal rulers in 1804 to gain their freedom. The French then demanded extortionate reparation money to compensate its former enslavers for their loss. They continued to treat generations of Haitian people as commodities. Soon, French banks saw a lucrative opening. 

Emily Beeny: And so this French bank that funds the construction of the Eiffel Tower is lending on a very predatory basis to Haiti, in order to allow Haiti to pay back its debt to France. This is a monument that sits in the middle of a World's Fair that is in many ways all about the declaration of French supremacy, the display of France's growing colonial power and international reach.

Fraiman: The form of this object is really something that feels out of a fairytale.

Narrator: Curator Jeffrey Fraiman. This 18th century English porcelain tower hid a surprise.

Fraiman: The upper chamber would've contained perfume with the scent emanating from the pierced windows.

Narrator: The tower is full of fun details -

Fraiman: - the little birds perched on the roof, the little mischievous fox trying to get at them.

Shuck: It feels to me like a place for your imagination to go.

Narrator: That’s poet Kim Shuck. There was a great taste for whimsical porcelain objects in 18th century Europe. Nearby, you’ll find beautifully painted birds, apples, and even a cauliflower and a melon! You’d find those objects on a wealthy family’s dining table. Each one opened up to hold soup, sauce or desserts, delighting guests with their lifelike appearance.

Shuck: There's also just a very human part of that, which is a fascination with new information about the world, unexpected information.

Narrator: - reflecting the interest in fresh discoveries about the natural world and its plant and animal species at this time of global exchange and scientific discovery.

Dreyfus: Ancient Egyptian artists were renowned for their exceptional skill in carving wood.

Narrator: Curator in Charge of Ancient Art, Renee Dreyfus.

Dreyfus: It was a common practice to place small, beautifully carved images that represent the deceased, in the tombs. And the man's name is Seneb - an important person in the Pharaoh's entourage.

He's made out of nine pieces of wood so that the striated wood grain matches every curve in his body. And if you look carefully, his black eyes, his eyebrows, white fingernails, kilt, and the rectangular red base he's standing on are all painted - and amazingly, much of the color remains.

Major: It draws you in and it has its own power. That is why I love the piece, and I actually had to write to it because I felt like this was a person with a heart, with a spirit, with a mind, that was honored with this carving.

Narrator: That’s poet devorah major. Her poem about Seneb is written as if in his own voice:

Major: True of voice, they said of me. Years spent learning the curve of pottery, the smoothness of limestone, the caprice of papyrus, brush strokes quick and sure. 

Some scribes worked the fields, numbering cattle and counting crops. A place for the ordinary to scratch their livings out, tabulating taxes paid and owed. An accounting of wealth they could see, but never share. Others found a military calling, writing messages of death and conquest. 

But I was a scribe of the temples, carefully reiterating spells that assured my patron an afterlife of opulence, amidst prayer. For millennia, people have recited the truth of my script, which lifted the dead, and opened eternity's doors.

Dreyfus: I’m Renee Dreyfus – I’m curator in charge of ancient art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Shuck: My name is Kim Shuck - I'm a lifelong artist and poet.

Dreyfus: This nearly life-sized stone torso is a sculpture from the reign of the great Pharaoh, Amenhotep III. And he's from Dynasty 18, which is a high point, a zenith of Egyptian art and civilization. And it's a sculpture of a god.

Narrator: The god was probably carved for Amenhotep III's royal jubilee. Three jubilees were held during the last decade of his reign. These were intended to rejuvenate the failing powers of the aging ruler and emphasize his relationship with the gods. 

The god holds a loop-shaped ankh, symbol of life, and a scepter, representing power. And the dark color of the stone he’s carved from recalls the rich, fertile soil around the Nile, suggesting new life.

Shuck: And that gorgeous stone, it just speaks to reverence and patience, that are present in the making as well as the looking. Just looking at that object, broken as it is - the residual magnificence and dignity of that piece, I think, speaks to something about awe and the way that a human body feels and experiences that kind of awe and reverence.

Dreyfus: I am Renee Dreyfus – I’m Curator in charge of Ancient Art.

This is an anthropoid coffin of a man named Iret-hor-iru.

The afterlife was envisioned as a continuation of an ideal earthly existence. For the ancient Egyptians, they believed that the body was necessary to the survival of the spirit - it was a place to which the spirit could return to, to receive sustenance and even protection. 

So it makes sense that a human-shaped coffin could function as a substitute for the mummified body within it. And in addition to that, it provides a surface for those magical images and texts that you see running down the body of the coffin. These texts were used to protect the deceased and assure the safe passage into this happy afterlife.

And if we look at that unusually long inscription, it's carved with the owner's name and also a spell from the Book of the Dead, Spell 72, that guarantees the care of the deceased and his free movement in the next world. So it's really a very special coffin for a wealthy man. And at one time it was painted, and if you look carefully at the wig case, you can still see some of that paint that's on there.

Narrator: This winged genius, or genie, was carved almost 3000 years ago. It was made for the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, king of the mighty Assyrian Empire. Today, the empire would include Iraq, parts of Iran, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey. 

An Assyrian genie was believed to have magical powers. Curator Renee Dreyfus:

Dreyfus: It protected the king from any diseases, ill fortune - and even death. Ashurnasirpal II lavished great attention on his royal palace in Nimrud, which was his capital city.

Narrator: The genie’s magnificent wings are matched by his skillfully carved curled hair, beard and jewelry. He would originally have been one of a pair of genies, guarding an image of the king in a royal audience chamber.

Below are intricately carved ivory plaques. They were found in the palace that belonged to Ashurnasirpal's son, also in Nimrud. Most would have been used to decorate wooden furniture such as thrones. 

Dreyfus: Both unworked and carved ivories were thought of as precious substances, and they were highly prized. The ivories were often painted and inlaid in color and sometimes overlaid with gold.

Narrator: The carvings were made by artists who came from Syria and Phoenicia - today’s Lebanon. These were then part of the Assyrian empire.

Dreyfus: So these artists created plaques that borrowed heavily from Egyptian art - you can see that here, and especially where it depicts fantastic composite animals and floral settings.

Narrator: Curator Renee Dreyfus:

Dreyfus: This marvelous image of a gift bearer is from the fabled city of Persepolis, which is located in today's southwestern Iran. And it dates back over 2,500 years - it was during this time that the Persians had the greatest empire that the world had ever seen.

Narrator: This gift bearer originally decorated a monumental stone staircase. He was part of a carved portrayal of a procession of attendants carrying food, drink and animals to a royal banquet or religious ritual.   

Dreyfus: His dress and his pose identify him as a Persian servant, and he was bringing a filled vessel for the celebration. He is wearing what's known as a bashlyk - it's one piece of fabric, but when you look closely at it you can see curls from his hair, curled mustache, and from his beard, almost like snails wrapped around, peeking out.

Narrator: Now, look between this gift bearer, and the larger carving of the “winged genius” to the left – made around 300 years earlier. You can see how the Persians were inspired by Assyrian art. But in those 300 years, a little more realism has crept into the Persian carving. That’s probably because of the influence of more naturalistic Greek art – a sign of the growing connections between cultures in the Mediterranean and the Near East.

Narrator: Curator Renee Dreyfus:

Dreyfus: Among the earliest treasures that we have in our Ancient Art collection are these timeless Cycladic figures that you see here.

Narrator: The marble figures were made almost 5000 years ago, on the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean Sea.

Dreyfus: And these figures probably were intended to be fertility figures of some sort. Although we don't know - it's before the time of writing. They represent the human body in its purest, pristine, compact, and essential form.

But at one point they had paint on them and sometimes you can see traces of paint. And if the paint is gone, you can see what is called paint ghosts - the area of the marble that was protected by the color and it is less worn than the surrounding areas that did not have color, so it stands out in high relief. And these paint ghosts reveal that blue was used for eyes, eyebrows, hair, while red dots and stripes in different patterns sometimes appear on the faces of these figures, and perhaps it represents face painting or maybe even tattooing.

Artists like Picasso, Matisse, Brancusi and others were inspired by these figures and even collected them and placed them in their studios as constant reminders of how you could create an emotionally stirring image - yet make it of abstract forms.