They wrote several first-rate works on local Iranic and Mesopotamian styles.

Here there are more token prints by well-known artists like Howard Hodgkin, Rachel Whiteread and Richard Long than first-rate original works.

A quick search reveals at least 10 such parks around New York City, many with first-rate works by outstanding artists ranging from the late 19th century to the present.

But "The Avant-Garde of France: The 1940's and 1950's" has a more manageable time frame, even though it lacks first-rate works.

So few people were civilised, and they, like the first-rate works of art, were mostly French.

They're banking on first-rate 20th-century works' enticing new Hollywood millionaires, along with other local collectors who have traditionally shopped in New York.

This may also reflect a healthier market in which dealers are having trouble holding on to first-rate works or can sell them just as easily more discreetly.

Meanwhile, first-rate works of art are harder and harder to come by.

The absence of more first-rate works is not entirely the fault of the museum, which formed its department of Asian art in 1915.

The Old Master and modernist sections are loaded with first-rate works that help fill gaps in the collection.