Museum, 1972 | From the Vaults

What’s life like behind the scenes at a museum? This fascinating cinéma vérité documentary offers a rare glimpse at the inner workings of several North American institutions, providing viewers with the unique opportunity to eavesdrop on conversations around special exhibitions, scientific research, and educational programming. Follow the conservation of a Kanaga mask at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.; the replication of a dinosaur skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; a scientific study of Botticelli’s “The Virgin and Child” (c. 1490) at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University; and preparation for the blockbuster exhibition “Treasures of Tutankhamun” that shattered records at The Met in 1978. As part of The Met’s 150th anniversary, each month we released three to four films from the Museum’s extensive moving-image archive, which comprises over 1,500 films, both made and collected by the Museum, from the 1920s onward. The series will continue on a monthly basis