Sue, Many years ago, the J Paul Getty had the drawings of Hans Holbein the Elder (his sitters included most of the court of Henry VIII and a lot of wealthy burghers and other folk who caught his eye). It was hard not to put nose-prints on the glass (that museum doesn't rely on ropes to keep people at bay, just courtesy) and I could linger. Those drawings were so fresh and lively and the communication between artist and sitter was immediate. Can you imagine being a maybe a yard away from Anne Boleyn and sketching her? Another show I enjoyed tremendously was the Scythian Exhibit down in LA. Most people didn't know what was there, and the rooms were empty enough for contemplation. I stood in front of that pectoral of horses and griffins for almost 20 minutes without a guard raising so much as an eyebrow. :sigh: The Tutankhamon show (LA) and the Smithsonian collection (SF) were terrible... rushed through like cattle after driving all night? And you couldn't even think of going back to check something! Where's the sense of connection if you can't verify a correspondence? I heard that Chicago had treated the Tutankhamon show differently: instead of cattle lines they made rooms within rooms like entering the sepulchre. I will have to add that I was impressed with SF's coverage of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Israel only allowed 12 small fragments to come over, and they were kept very dark for preservation's sake. It ought to have been disappointing. However, the museum took the stories told on each fragment and had other works telling those stories nearby: medieval tapestries, manuscripts, a Book of Hours, and one room with a very large model of the Temple in the middle. There was a room with archeological finds (oil lamps and a decorated chest stick in my mind) and maps showing the site. They filled 3 rooms with enough space to allow people to breathe and enough objects to satisfy the senses. I want the pictures to examine at my leisure, but even a poorly designed exhibit brings us closer to the mind of the artist... scale and texture just don't print very well. Carolly