I cannot believe this place. The Frick Collection has to be one of the best representative collections in the United States of European art from 1500-1850. It is housed in a museum which used to be someone’s house, and it is right next to Central Park in the Upper East Side.
I had never seen most of the paintings in this museum but they were so clearly representative of the styles of masters which with everyone is familiar that I instantly recognized who had created a lot of the paintings there. I decided to go when I did – on Saturday 12 May – because Nancy who invited me to that opera told me that it would be the last weekend of a Renoir exhibition featuring the dance paintings, and I wanted to see them.
It is not such a big place but it is full of the best paintings. It had this painting of someone important looking, and I wondered if it was a king. I checked it out and it was Philip IV of Spain. I do not know the history of this painting but it the tour said that it was an official royal portrait and I did not know those were sold. It had the picture I recognized of Thomas More – why is that not in England? Surely there are other portraits just like these two; if they were unique they would be in their home countries. I spent about three hours in the place.
I had a nice date with a boy at Columbus Circle after the museum, and that was a nice addition to a good day for me.