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Comments

• [1] Robert from NYC September 10, 2008 - 10:39AM

  Sarah Palin of the Museum world? You mean he wears lipstick!?

  Seriously as a lacemaker I'd like to see this curator of textiles have a not necessarily blockbuster but advertised exhibit of lace from it's beginnings thru today.

  
  
• [2] Gene September 10, 2008 - 11:04AM

  de Montebello was the one who invited Philip Morris into the Museum so prominently and so often.

  For example, a 1987 NY Times article says of the 1983 Philip Morris-sponsored Vatican exhibit:

  "Perhaps the most famous and controversial donation by Philip Morris was a $3 million-plus exhibition of Vatican art treasures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1983. At the inaugural banquet, Terence Cardinal Cooke, then the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, led a prayer for Mr. Weissman and his Philip Morris colleagues. The benediction prompted a Philip Morris vice president, Frank Saunders, to say, "We are probably the only cigarette company on this earth to be blessed by a cardinal."

  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEEDB113CF93BA35750C0A961948260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all

  Philip Morris' donations were not without _known_ strings. Philip Morris called in its chits as early as the 1994 smoking ban, and as late as the 2004 smoking ban, urging its grateful beneficiaries to testify before City Council and argue its position against a smoking ban.

  Giving PM a civilized veneer over its business of selling an addictive deadly product will remain a shameful, ugly blot on the history of the Met.