One of my favorite places in New York City has to be the Frick. The Frick Museum (Collection?) is housed in a gorgeous, baroque, limestone building that almost looks like it was stolen from the Left Bank and moved to the Upper East Side (which wouldn't be much of a stretch, would it?) The building and collection were both, originally, owned by John Frick who was your quintessential captain of industry/ gilded age scion/ rat-bastard with a lot of money and a very fine taste for art. He collected a lot of renaissance pieces and there is an entire room dedicated to religious art (pietas and the like). If you are a leftwinger: ignore the fact that John Frick was, apparently, an incredibly ruthless businessman who brutally exploited his workers and just revel in the glory of his limestone mansion.
Stepping into the Frick you can understand why the Victorians were so obsessed with money: if you had enough of it you could live in a gorgeous house that you could stuff with John Singer Sargent paintings. The inside of the Frick museum is beautiful and completely peaceful; there, usually, aren't huge, frazzled crowds galloping from one section to the next like there are at the Met. Simply put: this is not a Louvre-sized collection so you feel like you can take your time wandering around, free of the worry that if you don't hurry you'll miss the Egyptian tombs, and the early medevil goblets. Plus, the setting in which the art hangs is a former home and there is an intimacy about the entire collection; it feels lived in somehow. Walking around it's hallowed halls you understand why art collecting was and is an obsession for those with a disposable income. Collect the right pieces, a la Frick, and your history will become inextricably linked to artistic greatness.
The lushness of the home and the collection will leave you slightly breathless and if it weren't for the yellow cabs zipping by the French windows you might even think that you were in Vienna.
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