MFA - Part 1

Yikes, I better get on this blogging thing so I won't be posting about Boston things two months after we move away.  That would only make me sad.  Awhile ago I came up with a great plan to venture into Boston with Sophie at least once a week.  I don't know if we've gone quite that frequently, but we have been doing better about getting out.  This has been partly facilitated by passes from the library, which give you discounted tickets to some museums.  As a side note, we LOVE the main branch of the Cambridge Public Library, which is only a few blocks away from our apartment.  Not only do they have the museum passes, it's also a beautiful, big building with a park.  It's high on my list of things I will miss when we're gone.

Since we've started going on our "Boston Outings," Sophie and I have been to the Museum of Fine Arts twice.  Both times I've gone in the afternoon, so we have fun riding the T over there, then walk around for a bit before Sophie falls asleep in her stroller.  Score!  Then I'm free to take my time walking around the galleries and don't have to worry about keeping Sophie quiet and away from the art.  I feel so lucky to have such a world-class art museum this close, where I can go see the expansive Egyptian collection, check out the new Modern Art wing and amazing Art of the Americas section, plus see famous works by Monet, Van Gogh, John Singer Sargent and so many others.  Here are some pictures (of pictures!) from our first trip together (I made them bigger so you can see the paintings better):

Ice Floe, 2011 - Whenever you touch the white part you hear the sound of "air bubbles being released from glacial ice as it melted into the [Arctic] sea"

This bed reminded me of Downtown Abbey, I think because of the greyhounds

Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer - Edgar Degas, cast in bronze after 1921.  This is Degas's largest surviving sculpture and the clothes and ballet slippers were originally pink satin and gauze

Lullaby: Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse) - Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist - Sandro Botticelli, about 1500

Sophie for scale in front of a Temple gateway, built during the reign of Ptolemy VIII, about 170-116 B.C., with additions by Nero, about A.D. 54-68.  The plaque said the gateway is 24 tons and 17 feet tall, making it the second largest ancient Egyptian object in America!

A view outside

One of the museum entrances