by Mark Silva
Met Karl Rove at the museum yesterday.
Hadn’t planned it.
Bumped into him. We were visiting the Freer and Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, where a wonderful new exhibit about Portugal and the world in the 16th and 17th Centuries entitled Encompassing the Globe is showing on two of the darkened subterranean floors of the Sackler, one of the most beautiful galleries in town.
In gallery after gallery there, the Sackler is displaying the art which Portuguese explorers and missionaries collected in their conquests of South America, Africa and India.
And who was visiting the same gallery but Rove, architect of another two famous exploits, the election and reelection of the 43rd president of the United States.
“Better check this guy,” Rove said of yours truly, in jest, of course, to a museum guard. “He’s trouble.”
Trouble allright: Have blog, will write.
We readily agreed that this was one fine exhibit, he pointed us to the intricate ivory- and silver- and wooden-inlaid chests and tables of Golden Goa, once headquarters for Estado da India, in the next room, and we all moved on.
We saw capes stitched in silver.
Boxes made of tortoise-shell.
And a casket made of mother-of-pearl.
Stunning.
