The Frick Collection

Ten days in Italy trying to soak in as much culture and as many sights as we possibly could, definitely left us realizing that we hadn't done nearly as much as we wanted to in our first year in NYC! So this weekend we decided to venture out and see a new NYC sight.

We choose The Frick Collection. It is located at East 70th Street and 5th. It is the collection of Henry Clay Frick, when he passed in 1919 he stated in his will that after the death of his wife, the home was to be turned into a museum. We had heard many good things about this museum, which is why is was our pick.

We got their in the early afternoon and agreed that we would not spend more than 2 hours there. Having toured many museums together now, we have come to the realization that 2 hours is our limit in a museum, after the 2 hour mark, it's just not fun anymore.

Our tickets came with audioguides, which we were both very happy about. We went downstairs to see the special exhibit on Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780), which we both enjoyed. Then we went back upstairs to begin looking at the permanent collection. The museum really is a house (or a mansion really)! There are a couple of rooms that feel more like you're in a gallery but most of the time you are walking through Frick's study or dining room or living room.

The art collection really blew me away. I didn't have high expectations that I was going to know many of the artisits, I don't know why. But lo and behold there were plenty of artisits that I knew, El Greco, Renoir, Vermeer, Valezquez, Lippi, Rembrandt, Whistler, etc. The audioguides were great, the perfect amount of information on each piece and you could listen to only what you wanted to.

We wandered through the mansion, sometimes together, sometimes on our own, just taking in the beauty of the collection that Mr. Frick had put together. The best part though is that the house has an indoor courtyard, which in NYC is a little bit of heaven. It's beautiful and so peaceful so we spent some time just sitting in there and talking.

There were so many beautiful pieces that it is difficult to choose my favorites but some of my favorites were:

St. John the Evangelist - the way this particular picture was lit up in the museum made it really stand out.

St. Francis in the Desert

Virgin Child with Saints and Donor

OK that's just to name a few - but if you go to the website you can see a lot of the collection. It was a wonderful afternoon spent and I'm looking forward to our many more NYC adventures!