"This exhibition will present the hand-carved stringed instruments, particularly archtop guitars, created by three New York master luthiers. Featuring the extraordinary guitars of John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone, this unprecedented exhibition of approximately eighty musical instruments will focus on the work of these modern-day master craftsmen and their roots in a long tradition of stringed instrument making that has thrived for more than four hundred years and that was first brought to New York from Italy around the turn of the twentieth century"--The Metropolitan Museum of Art web site.