From the French school, a landscape by Claude Lorrain, a scene of battling horses by Géricault, a stately portrait by Ingres, one of Seurat's brilliant drawings in black crayon showing a French vaudeville scene, and works by Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas make a strong showing.

But it is his evocation of Holbein's stately, exquisitely polished, razor-sharp portraits that lends them a dignity and weight.

His portraits of the mulattoes, indenture Indians and Negroes where the bases of debate, and whether the painter immortalized these people because he felt a personal bond with them rather less than the European Creoles which no stately portraits were ever recorded.

Even today, haggard men and women sit on the curb beneath the stately marquee portrait of Honest Abe, sipping from brown paper bags and mulling over problems at the Lincoln, which they say include the immovable iron bars on the motel's windows and the indifferent security guards.

A rare compositional drawing by Fra Filippo Lippi, a subtly toned landscape by Claude Lorrain, a scene of battling horses by Géricault, a stately portrait by Ingres, one of Seurat's brilliant black crayon drawings of a French vaudeville scene, and works by Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec are among the highlights.

Brilliant Light One could do worse than begin with Sorolla, the Spanish painter whose stately portraits of well-to-do women and heads of state, and whose luminous images of children frolicking on sun-drenched beaches captured the imagination of the American public 80 years ago.

In place of the stately but lifeless commissioned portraits of an earlier era, we find - see the current exhibition of photographs by the late Chris Garnham - a quick-witted instantaneity.

Light paneling set an elegant background for stately portraits of former Oklahoman elected officials and a framed copy of the state charter.

Fortunately, even on Friday night, or especially on Friday night, the museum offers many spots of beauty and solitude, starting with John Singer Sargent's stately, patrician portraits.

Vivian Reed contributes a formal, stately portrait, "Mother and Daughter."