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The viselike setting is spatially difficult, yet culturally rich in opportunities to comment on the treasure house — with its power, prestige, human vanity and folly — just beyond.

This is also a period when museums are seen as overstocked treasure houses.

Tucked inside the Met’s Korea gallery you’ll find a treasure house of stationery boxes, furniture and even stirrups covered with slick black lacquer and inlaid with glittering mother-of-pearl.

Once a saffron-scented cultural treasure house, present-day Herat still looks proudly to its rich heritage of Persian poetry, miniaturist painting and resplendent architecture.

The artist competes not only with the breathtaking vista of Central Park, framed by a forest of Manhattan luxury towers, but also with the aura of the treasure house downstairs.