The cherry blossoms on the Mall vanished in an early April downpour and frost nipped the buds on the magnolias between the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery, but there were still visible signs of spring in Washington, in the form of festive commemorative exhibitions at two of the Capitol’s most distinguished institutions. At the Phillips Collection, “The Renoir Returns” celebrated the 120th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Duncan Phillips, and the 85th anniversary of its opening as the first museum of modern art in the United States.[1] The occasion was marked by a reinstallation, after a four-year absence, of some of the Phillips’s best known European works— including the much loved, irresistible Pierre Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880–1881). Elsewhere in Washington, at the National Gallery, another kind of milestone was acknowledged by “Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection.”[2] The exhibition honored the late Ian Woodner’s connoisseurship and the continuing generosity of his daughters, Andrea and Dian, who, fifteen years ago, placed a major portion of their father’s collection of works on paper at the Gallery as a long-term loan and, in a series of gifts made between 1991 and 2005, donated forty-four drawings outright. This year, Andrea gave an additional seventy-four works to the National Gallery, about half of which were included in the present show.

At the Phillips, the news was mixed. First, the plusses. Seeing so many of the works that we associate most strongly with the