Canapes on the Menu, Art Treasures on the Agenda

The details had been worked out over three weeks of negotiations, and even the canapes had been considered (vegetarian only). So when President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan stood off the courtyard at the Freer Gallery of Art, the city's cultural elite was in place and the Washington reception was in full swing.

Museum directors from across the country had flown in for the occasion. Everywhere there were big names capable of making things happen. The National Gallery of Art. The Library of Congress. National Geographic. Even Vice President Cheney, who briefly toured the museum with Karzai before disappearing.

The 3 1/2 -hour reception Monday night was the result of weeks of planning and compromising -- in three languages by two governments and two major cultural institutions, each with an agenda. It was cultural diplomacy: All wanted to impress upon Afghan officials how interested Americans are in the history and culture of their country.

For Karzai, the goal was to emphasize Afghanistan as a cultural crossroads that could use help restoring its heritage. For the State Department -- which put the reception on Karzai's schedule -- the aim was to demonstrate American interest and ability in helping revive Afghanistan. For the National Endowment for the Humanities, which co-hosted the reception, it was a way to encourage archaeologists, filmmakers and others to turn their attention to Afghanistan.

And finally, for the Smithsonian Institution's Freer and Sackler galleries -- the other co-host -- it was a chance to show Afghans how well they display Islamic art and to spark long-term exchange programs with young Afghans.

"Afghanistan has been a cultural and political pivot on the world arena," said Julian Raby, director of the Freer and Sackler galleries, who introduced Karzai to guests and vowed to help the country rebuild its museum service.

What no one stated openly as a goal was nabbing as a traveling exhibit the rarely seen treasures of the Kabul Museum. Only recently rediscovered intact in vaults in Kabul's Presidential Palace, the artifacts include ivories, Buddhist sculptures, painted vases and the famed Bactrian hoard: 20,000 gold objects and ornaments that could rival King Tut's treasures.

"As far as I know, that's not on the table," said Raby, who said it would be "completely impertinent" to mention it because "the Afghanis have not even decided whether they will let it out of the country."

The artifacts were hidden during the Soviet occupation and the rule of the Taliban. National Geographic led a $250,000 effort to catalogue the collection with a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment.

But if none of the reception sponsors would identify an exhibition of Afghan treasures as a goal, there was rampant speculation about international competition to host such an exhibit.

"We hear that the Field Museum in Chicago has an inside track," said Dan Herrick, a former chief financial officer of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art. "The National Gallery has clout politically and diplomatically. When you're dealing with another country, it's easy for them because they're so well known. But they're only paintings. They don't have an Islamic Department. They don't have a curator of Islamic art. The Metropolitan has all of that, and the Sackler. The Sackler's a natural."

The National Endowment billed the reception as a marquee event for the U.S. museum community. On previous visits to Afghanistan, Lynne Munson, the endowment's deputy chairman, met with Afghanistan's minister of culture.

"We did specifically talk about the need for the world to better understand the true history of Afghanistan," said Munson, who hopes a representative from an American museum will join her on a future trip "so that we can further discuss the opportunity for these objects to tell Afghanistan's true story around the world."

Iris Love, whose gift to the National Endowment helped pay for the reception, said a true understanding of Afghan art would require travel in two directions. Americans should visit Afghanistan, whose culture spans a larger area than its present-day borders. And art from Afghanistan -- supplemented by other collections -- should be seen by as many people as possible.

"I have loved Afghanistan from the time it was called Bactria," Love said. "It works both ways. To go to Afghanistan would help the country, would inspire it. And it will be wonderful if the Afghan government will loan us some of their treasures, but they will have to be enhanced by loans from other museums."

With such high-level expectations for the reception, no detail was too minor. Invitations went out by fax 10 days in advance, Munson said. She spent hours calling museum directors across the country, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo., the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Detroit Institute of Arts, all museums with serious collections of Islamic art or a significant Arab American audience.

The event began with the usual instruments of Washington planners: phone calls, meetings, briefings. It ended with hints of reciprocity and the beginnings of relationships.

The final tab? The National Endowment ponied up about $8,000 from donors to pay for its share of the reception. The museum donated dozens of hours of staff time -- more than 16 hours just to conduct walk-throughs with the Secret Service.

"They didn't say, 'Pay for it.' They just said could we host it," Raby said. "So I said, 'You mean pay for it?' But the endowment said no, they would find the money. There are hidden costs, let's put it like that. But from the point of view of this museum, Afghanistan is a natural country for us to be cementing a relationship with."