The exterior of Philadelphia's Museum of Art is far more recognizable than the collection inside the building, as the museum's steps were featured in a hugely popular 1970's movie as the place where an underdog athlete trained.  I did my best to ignore the association as I approached.  I wondered how many of the people on the steps who were taking pictures of one another would enter the museum afterwards.  

          Far more dramatic than the plaza is the museum's Great Stair Hall, leading up to a gilded statue of the Roman goddess Diana.   The divine huntress was the work of the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  He was one of the most acclaimed artists of the Gilded Age.   Known primarily as a sculptor and engraver,  Saint-Gaudens created his Diana originally as a weathervane.  In 1892, Saint-Gaudens' gleaming Diana of the Tower was set atop Madison Square Garden in New York.   That was a second, smaller version of the composition, as the first had been too tall and heavy to rotate properly.  Diana graced the skyline until Madison Square Garden was demolished in 1925.  She was not replaced on the roof when the Garden was rebuilt in another location.  Instead, she was placed in storage until 1932, when she was installed in her current Philadelphia home.   Her elegantly poised figure dominates the entryway, transforming it into a Neoclassical temple to the archer goddess.  

          The museum possessed a permanent collection of paintings, statuary and precious objects worthy of a major city.  In addition, it contained a reconstructed Hindu temple, a portion of a medieval French cloister, and a Japanese tea house complex. 

The replica of a cloister contains elements from the Abbey of Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines, in Roussillon, dating from the 13th Century.

The Japanese wing is an alluring refuge from the downtown congestion, yet another reason to visit the museum.