This is Nate Dimae of the Memory Palace Podcast.

I am currently the artist and residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This episode is one of 10 stories that I'll be producing for and about the Met.

Some of these stories from the residency will be hard to follow or a properly experience

if you're not at the museum.

I think this one works. It will, however, make more sense if you take a look at the painting

discussed within it. Find it in the show notes on my website, themerrypalace.org,

or on your podcast app. Alternatively, you can look it up at metmuseum.org.

It is the portrait of William Dugid, spelled D-U-G-U-I-D. That is D-U-G-U-I-D.

All that said in a perfect world you would listen to this piece while standing in front of the

painting. It is located in Gallery 747 in the Met's American Wing.

This is the memory palace. I'm Nate Dimae.

It was the flowers and the wending vine green on white that caught her eye.

Amelia Pack was pulling together an exhibition for the Met about how global trade sent ideas about

art and beauty around the world between 1500 and 1800. She's a curator of textiles and decorative

arts at the museum. And she was at this antique showdown town. This was a few years ago,

kind of went on a whim to see what was what and catch up with some friends.

And she found herself walking through this big convention space,

wandering through the warrants of temporary booths filled with American antiques.

Just sideboard after sideboard after sideboard. Little oil still life of a fruit bowl after a

little oil still life of a fruit bowl. And on and on. When she saw this painting, this one here,

or more precisely she saw the clothes in this painting. Worn by this rather dashing man,

...