It’s a little sad that the board of trustees at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has felt obliged to drop the term “director” in naming Philippe de Montebello as the museum’s new chief executive, but the decision itself is an excellent one. In the two decades that Mr. de Montebello has been in charge of the museum’s artistic affairs, he has not only rescued our greatest museum from the extravagant follies and intellectual demoralization caused by the reckless tenure of his immediate predecessor, but he has also restored the institution to a position of leadership in the cultural life of the nation. His achievement is all the more remarkable when we compare it to the woeful decline in standards that has overtaken so many other art museums—and not only in New York, of course—in the same period.

It was the Met board itself that, some twenty years ago, demoted the office of the director to se ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase