Vanderlyn's Versailles panorama is one of the strangest objects in The Met - a 360-degree painted room built to sell Americans an experience of France. Hartt films the same city from its palace to its ring road and reconfigures the movement and sightlines through it, so the nineteenth-century immersive spectacle gets answered by a twenty-first-century one. Jeff Parker's score does a lot of the work.
What to expect
A single-gallery installation in Gallery 735 combining moving image, sound and Hartt's reconfiguration of the panorama's angles of vision. Allow twenty to thirty minutes to sit with it properly; the score is composed to be heard through rather than sampled. Included with museum admission, alongside everything else on view at The Met Fifth Avenue.
Good to know
- The installation is free with museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish for New York State residents and students from NY, NJ and CT with ID.
- It is in Gallery 735 at The Met Fifth Avenue, in the modern and contemporary wing.
- The work responds directly to John Vanderlyn's Versailles panorama in the museum's own collection - see that first if you can.
- The score is by Jeff Parker, and the piece is built to be experienced with the sound, not skimmed.
- The Met closes one day a week and runs extended hours on two evenings; confirm before a late visit.
- The museum is at Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, closest to the 86th Street stations on the 4, 5, 6 and Q.
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Common questions
How long is it on view?
September 25, 2026 through February 7, 2027, in Gallery 735 at The Met Fifth Avenue.
Does it cost extra?
No. The exhibition is free with museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish for New York State residents and for students from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with valid ID.
What is it responding to?
John Vanderlyn's Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818-19), which Hartt reworks into a contemporary moving-image installation filmed across Paris.
More at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
