Back in 1991, when Steve Martin made the film L.A. Story, you were still allowed to roller skate through the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Here is Mr. Martin (blurred figure) skating past Guido Reni’s 17th century portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino (you know; the Papal Legate to Bologna. THAT Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino.).

Here’s another still from that comedy. It shows Steve Martin (blurred figure) skating from one gallery into another.

The picture in the forground sure looks like François Boucher’s Cupid Wounding Psyche (1741), but I won’t swear to it. The one shown on the LACMA website (that’s where the link takes you) is a shaped canvas; the one above is rectangular. I’ll have to go to LACMA to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Let’s look at one more:

The big equestrian portrait in back is by a French guy named Antoine-Jean Gros. It’s called Portrait of Second Lieutenant Charles Legrand (1810). The likeness was made posthumously, so Lt. Legrand either made a very good model or a very bad one.

The sculpture on the right is named Bust of Neptune (1727). Presumably it was named by the sculptor who made it, one Lambert-Sigisbert Adam. He was French, too. The LACMA webpage describing it shows a flopped image of the bust. I cannot imagine why. When next I visit I will have some very pointed questions to ask the curators.