Exhibition Rooms
Exhibition rooms in the West Building were designed to be harmonious settings for works of art. To accomplish this, the architectural details in each gallery reflect the place and period that produced the art displayed in it, so that the room itself becomes a second frame for the paintings. Galleries 48 and 51 were finished with wood paneling to evoke the homes and style of the Dutch seventeenth century. When the museum opened in 1941, A Polish Nobleman and other works by Rembrandt and his circle from the Mellon Collection hung there. In 2001, A Polish Nobleman, now reframed, hangs in the same location. One of the new Dutch Cabinet Galleries, completed in 1995, can be seen through Gallery 48.