CBS 2 At The Met

CBS 2 At The Met: Wisteria Dining Room

NEW YORK (CBS) ― The Metropolitan Museum of Art is showing off a rare French Art Nouveau room that's been in storage for 40 years. There just hasn't been the space for it until now, as part of the museum's expanded new galleries for 19th and Early 20th century art. Visitors will see the Wisteria Dining Room designed in 1910, by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer.

Associate Curator Jared Goss told CBS 2's Dana Tyler all about the designer. He said, "Levy-Dhurmer was one of a generation of people who approached interior design form the point of view of creating total environment, total atmosphere he's a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Hoffman. But Levy-Dhurmer approaches the project from the point of view as a painter rather than an architect."

This room, and everything in it, were part of an entire home owned by an engineer who commissioned Levy-Dhurmer to design the interior. Each room had a distinct theme.

Goss said, "It's from an apartment in Paris, just at the foot of the Eiffel Tower it's a French Art Nouveau dining room on the theme of wisteria which is traditionally the symbol of welcome, so it's an appropriate theme for a dining room."

what were the original windows

Associate Curator Goss and Tyler saw how Levy-Dhurmer worked the wisteria throughout the room. "You have the carved wisteria blossoms up on the cornice and then further wisteria leaves down by the doors. Levy-Dhurmer was very clever in that he put the wisteria motif in the appropriate place

so you only had blossoms at the top where they'd be hanging and leaves at the vine where they vine

would be growing up the sort of architectural framework of the room."

Even the light fixtures will grow on museum visitors.

Goss said, "The lamps are supposed to look like the trunk of wisteria vines so they have this tough quality,

they're made of bronze with alabaster shades."

Goss is even displaying the century old original carpet, which he was pleasantly surprised to see that the colorful wisteria designs are still vibrant. He's downright giddy that the Met was finally able to

unpack this Art Nouveau example, and show it off totally intact, after four decades in storage.

"To say it was a pile of lumber is not so far from the truth because it fits together like a giant architectural puzzle and we had to put it all back together again. We had a team of about 15 different conservators, each a specialist in a particular area. There was something for everyone to do!"

The Wisteria Dining Room now and always at the Met, in the newly renovated 19th and Early 20th Century European Paintings and Sculpture Galleries.

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