A Collection of Histories

A Collection of Histories is part of the museum's reinstallation project, Reflections on a Museum, which looks at "the museum" as its subject. A Collection of Histories uses the museum's two Assyrian reliefs as case studies for how works of art accumulate collections of histories over time. By unpacking the layered meaning of these reliefs, one can examine the significance of context, interpretation, and confront an essential question:  Who owns the past? The Assyrian reliefs have been in the museum's collection since 1851.