Even for the Metropolitan Museum of Art it was impossible to duplicate the revelatory experience and concomitant visitor record of Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, the 2002 precursor of the present show and the first major U.S. exhibition on the topic in twenty-five years. Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor comes just five years later and simply could not be marketed as the same kind of novelty. Yet the faithful, returning museumgoer is rewarded with experiences of rare beauty, historical insight, and displays of astonishing technical virtuosity that are at least equal to those in the Renaissance show. Impeccably chosen and displayed, forty-five tapestries, almost all from larger sets, easily span the walls of the large galleries; chronologically, as well, they cover the entire seventeenth century and beyond. The examples on view date between 1585 and 1725 and were manufactured in a number of different European weaving centers. The first object on display instantly establishes the central historical event that would shape tapestry production for the next century: a fairly primitive but effective print by Frans Hogenberg, illustrating the Sack of Antwerp on 4 November 1576 by the notoriously brutal Spanish troops. Religious intolerance and the ruthless...