Walking through the Egyptian Galleries at the Brooklyn Museum, past the stone sculptures and mumified cats, I was struck by the paw feet on this Egyptian chair. Not only is it remarkable that a wooden chair survived this long ago (made as early as 1400 B.C.), but, a fan of American furniture, I was swept in to look further into Egyptian art by these paw feet. To some degree, civilizations have copied each other since the beginning of time. In this case, the lines not only from ancient Greece to the 1820s and early 1900s, but from ancient Egypt into Ancient Greece and on to Chippendale became clear.

As a person who spends the bulk of his time in the American Galleries, looking at the pieces and damaged goods on display made me wonder what portions of our stuff will make it into a gallery 2000 years in the future? The paw foot from an empire sofa? An IKEA wine glass? I suppose I won't be around to find out.

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) returned more than 900 works of art to 19 spectacularly renovated galleries on the second floor of its historic 1916 museum building on June 29. These works from the museum’s permanent collection have been in storage since 2005 when CMA closed for an expansion and renovation project that is re-imagining the museum for the community.

Works to be featured when the second floor of the historic 1916 building reopens at the end of June include world-renowned masterpieces from the museum’s collections of European art from 1600- 1800 and American art from 1700-1900, as well as the beloved Armor Court.

Visitors returning to the 1916 second floor galleries will enjoy works from the heart of the museum’s collection of Western European art as well as the formative stages in the development of American art. The newly renovated galleries are arranged around three spaces: the Armor Court, the central rotunda and the former interior garden court. The interior garden court has been transformed into a gallery for Italian painting and sculpture from 1600-1800 and the display of miniatures and other small works from 17th-century Europe.

The rotunda, cleared of display cases previously installed there, is now the central orientation spot from which to explore the building. The Armor Court, meanwhile, is virtually unchanged since its comprehensive renovation in 1998.