DENISE LEIDY: I'm Denise Leidy. I'm one of the curators in the Department of Asian Art.

LARRY BECKER: Hi, I'm Larry Becker. I'm the Sherman Fairchild conservator in charge of the Objects Conservation Department.

DENISE LEIDY: This is an example of what we call a Maitreya altarpiece. Maitreya is the teaching Buddha of the next cosmic era. So once we manage to destroy ourselves, there will be a need for Buddhism to be brought back to the phenomenal world, and he will come down from his personal Pure Land, and he will teach Buddhism to humanity and everyone else once again. And so the altarpiece really implies this moment of his descending from this paradise. He's shown standing in the center with his hands in gestures of offering and benevolence. He is encircled by a crowd of music-making celestials, who are known as apsaras in Sanskrit. And then he has a host of attendant figures including bodhisattvas and guardians and monks. So Larry, I've just been bragging about the fact that we are the only place in the West to have two of these very early and complicated gilt bronze altarpieces . . . and so I thought it might be fun for people to understand the issues in dealing with corrosion on something this early.

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