The Museum has just finished reinstalling highlights of its collections of medieval, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The works are newly displayed and interpreted, offering a preview of the Museum’s fresh approaches to the presentation of its collections that ultimately will be applied to all galleries. Visitors are invited to discover this transformation and consider new possibilities for making connections with art both familiar and unfamiliar, and for understanding its social and historical context through a range of gallery materials. 

Refurbishment of the galleries required extensive structural interventions in the oldest part of McCormick Hall to ensure the safety of the collections, and led to important upgrades to the gallery finishes, including new windows, hand-plastered walls, and Italian tile floors. The installation process has been a herculean task for the Museum's preparators, led by Michael Jacobs, chief preparator. With objects ranging from small gold coins and ivory carvings to monumental wood and stone sculptures—each with its own particular issues of display and conservation—the process has required every skill in the preparator’s tool kit. After years of planning and preparation, the time period for installing the works of art in the renovated galleries and custom-designed oak display cabinets can seem remarkably condensed—only a matter of weeks.

Among the exciting changes to the gallery is the relocation of the Spanish gisant, or tomb figure, shown here during the installation process. Previously sequestered in a corner, this rare and dominating work now takes pride of place in the center of the gallery where it can at last be seen in the round. Long a visitor favorite, the sculpture's majesty and pathos can now be fully understood thanks to its placement and new, collaboratively developed didactics—and thanks to the complex rigging required to install this massive work.

Also seen here in the process of installation are three important Spanish panel paintings being carefully sited by Mike and his team. Viewed from a sixteenth-century stairway from Majorca, these remarkable objects come back to life in a contextual “hang”—developed by Curator of Ancient Art Michael Padgett, Research Curator of European Painting and Sculpture Betsy Rosasco, Curator of Education Caroline Harris, and a team of educators, editors, and designers—intended to shape a broader sociohistorical understanding of remote times and cultures while also fostering close looking.

Like all the newly exhibited artworks in the gallery, the gisant and the panel paintings are accompanied by detailed interpretive labeling as well as new “carry cards” designed to be used on site by gallery visitors and to encourage consideration of relationships across geographic and cultural lines. Carry cards focus on issues such as international trade between Europe, the East, and Africa, and pilgrimage in the Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic church communities. These and other gallery innovations reflect the Museum’s ever-evolving role as a laboratory for creative learning for all its visitors.