The Italian term pietre dure – literally meaning "hard stone" – refers to the artistic cutting of semi-precious stones, such as agate, lapis lazuli, and other colorful hardstones, to fashion extravagant luxury objects, from architectural ornament and furniture to ornate display items and personal jewelry.

An unprecedented exhibition of luxury items from ancient Peru, embellished with brilliantly colored feathers of Amazonian rainforest birds, will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 26.

Anatomy of a Masterpiece, an installation opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 1, 2008, therefore presents visual – rather than textual – analysis of what makes a work of art a masterpiece by juxtaposing Chinese paintings with enlarged photographic details.

A special installation of magnificent Korean screens dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 11 and will be on view through June 1, 2008.

Sculptures by American artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955) will comprise The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2008 installation on The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening April 29.

The first major retrospective of the work of celebrated British artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) to be presented in the United States in more than 40 years will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 1, 2008.

Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840-1940 tells the story of photography's first 100 years through the work of 13 key figures who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of the medium: Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, Edouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Brassaï.

Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 5, Jasper Johns: Gray will be the first exhibition to examine the use of the color gray in the work of American artist Jasper Johns. From the mid-1950s to the present, gray has been a consistent thread in Johns's practice and an important means for the artist to evoke different moods and to explore a range of formal ideas.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the design for Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted's 843-acre New York City masterpiece, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks. On view from January 22 to May 11, 2008, the exhibition will feature approximately 40 photographs, most never before on public display.

Best known as the creator of the classical tradition in French painting, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was also one of the supreme masters of landscape painting. In his beautiful landscape paintings, nature is viewed "through the glass of time" and is endowed with a poetic quality that has been admired by painters as varied in style as Corot, Constable, Turner, Cézanne, Matisse, and Balthus.

An installation of rare and exquisitely decorated armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet and culturally related areas of Mongolia and China will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A pioneering figure in the history of modernism and one of the major artists of mid-19th-century France, Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was constantly at odds with authority. He rejected artistic convention, challenged academic norms, and created artworks that scandalized the public. By rebelling against tradition, he paved the way for the Impressionists and, through them, modern art.