Melania takes Mme Macron to the NGA

The First Lady of the United States Melania Trump showed her artistic appreciation when she toured the National Gallery of Art (NGA) yesterday (24 April) with her French counterpart, Brigitte Macron, who is in Washington, DC this week for an official State visit. The two were joined by the NGA deputy director Frank Kelly and curator of French paintings Mary Morton on the sans-husbands outing, chosen by Trump as the traditional State visit “spousal event”, which highlighted work by French artists as a sign of the longstanding US-France friendship. They visited the 17th-century sculptures by Pierre Legros I made for the sumptuous gardens of Versailles and the Impressionist galleries, where they admired the work of the American painter Mary Cassatt, according to the White House press release. They also toured the Cézanne Portraits loan show (until 1 July), which was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities—whose funding was threatened by Trump’s husband last year. “Thank you @NGADC for the beautiful tour among your many galleries. The paintings are a testament to the influence art has among all cultures. I was glad to be able to view the exquisite works with Mrs. Macron,” Trump tweeted later that day from her FLOTUS account. Is this visit to a national museum an anodyne and gracious choice by a woman whose husband is anything but, or a sign of FLOTUS’s support for government-sponsored culture?