The Corcoran Gallery of Art will open Masterpieces: European Art from the Collection, a salon-style installation of masterworks from the Corcoran's permanent collection of European paintings and decorative arts.

The Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts has evolved from one that was established as a repository of decorative art in 1907, during the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan. Today it is responsible for a comprehensive and important historical collection, one of the Metropolitan Museum's largest, reflecting the development of art in the major Western European countries.

The Museum's collection of Old Master and 19th-century European paintings - one of the greatest such collections in existence - numbers approximately 2,500 works, dozens of which are instantly recognizable worldwide. The French, Italian, Flemish, and Dutch schools are most strongly represented, with fine works also by British and Spanish masters.