NEW YORK.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents today Princely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580–1620, through January 30, 2005. Featuring more than 250 major works of art from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden—and especially from the Green Vault, a world-renowned treasure-chamber museum that has been preserved in its original design over the centuries—this exhibition illustrates the richness of one of the most spectacular princely collections of Europe, the Dresden Kunstkammer, around 1600. During this period of unusual economic prosperity, the Electors of Saxony amassed exotic materials and precious stones mounted with gold and silver, ivory turnings, ebony furniture, clocks and automatons, arms and armor, and bronze sculpture by major European artists.

The exhibition is made possible by Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis and the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation. Additional support has been provided by ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, Hamburg, Germany and the Laurence Levine Charitable Fund. The exhibition was organized by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.