Hello there and welcome to one of the toniest neighborhoods on Manhattan's Upper East Side,

right here on Fifth Avenue, on the iconic front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ground Zero for the famous Met Gala, that annual spectacle of celebrity in fashionable extremes.

But come with me, we're going inside. I want to show you

something. A couple of facts. The Met holds a staggering collection, 1.5 million works of art,

they say. Tens of thousands of which can be viewed across a dizzying maze of galleries. Right now,

we're crossing the Great Hall with its vaulted ceiling, and we're heading

up those stairs to the American wing. Stay close, you might get lost, and here we are. Room

760. This is what we've come for. Take a look. End of the room there, commanding the space

on its very own wall, the world-famous Washington crossing the Delaware.

Painted by a German, Emmanuel Loitsa, a 21-12-foot epic on canvas.

Something else, right?

George Washington, heroically posed, right foot propped on a seat, torso, draped in a cloak,

leading rag-tag troops across an icy river

on Christmas night, 1776, to ambush the British in Trenton. It is the indelible image of a truly

pivotal event. About a couple of things. First, they didn't cross crowded in such small boats.

I mean, there were 1,200 men.

That required longer, flat-bottomed Durham boats, big enough for more men, horses, even artillery.

And forget the Hollywood lighting, this was the middle of a miserable storm.

Driving wind, sleet, snow, at night, dead of winter. The real scene would have been

far less cinematic, and with a lot more ice in the river. And oh yeah, the flag. That's the

stars and stripes there in the painting, but that design wasn't adopted as the New Nations

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