With money flowing into many museum coffers and competition for visitors increasing, institutions that house the treasures of avid millionaire collectors are updating their look. This includes the Wallace Collection in London, which refurbished its Oval Drawing Room, left, and seven other major rooms. Photo: Courtesy of Trustees of The Wallace Collection, London

The Wallace Collection's Large Drawing Room, with boulle furnishings set off by lush wall coverings. Photo: Courtesy of Trustees of The Wallace Collection, London

 

The museum's revitalization emphasizes the intimacy of the house and its astonishing range of paintings, armor, porcelain and French furniture collected by five generations of Wallaces.

 

 

An interior from the Hôtel de Varengeville in Paris, circa 1740, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

 

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has redone its Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts to evoke how the elite --  royal and almost royal -- lived. Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

 

 

The Wrightsman Galleries' Sèvres porcelain. Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

 

"Of the four greatest collections of Sèvres in the world, the Metropolitan and the Wallace have two of them," said Robert S. Pirie, a lawyer and collector of French porcelain.

 

 

 

The Wrightsman Galleries' carved and gilded wood bed by Georges Jacob, known as a "lit à la duchesse." Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

 

There is not much bed covering remaining from the 18th century, but researchers found drawings and descriptions of such beds and recreated the silk covering that would have been used during the summer. 

 

 

 

The Metropolitan enlisted more than 20 conservators to carry out its refurbishment project. Among the challenges: cleaning 17 chandeliers and 59 wall sconces and installing lighting that could imitate different times of the day. Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

 

 

 

The Wrightsman Galleries at the Met. Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times

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