CHOCOLATIERS GIVE ARTIFACTS NEW LIFE...IN CHOCOLATE

Renowned and skilled chocolatiers and pastry chefs, wearing their traditional chef's hats and white chef jackets unveil their colorful, mouthwatering, and tantalizing chocolate artwork—some up to four feet long and two feet high. These sculptures, inspired by the Museum's halls, including the Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians, the Hall of African Peoples, and the Hall of Mexico and Central America, were created especially for the Chocolate exhibition.

On view in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda on the Museum's second floor, four sumptuous sculptures will be displayed at the Museum in June, another four in July. The sculptures include:

• A collection of life-like reptiles by L'Impero's Heather Carlucci
• A sculptural presentation inspired by African artifacts by the Eric Girerd Chocolate Factory's Eric Girerd
• An evocation of a magnificent Amazonian feathered headdress by Pastryarts.com's Steve Klc
• A re-creation of a Mayan ziggurat and Mayan serving vessels celebrating the roots of chocolate by Citarella's Bill Yosses

The exhibition Chocolate explores the legends, history, ecology, economics, and enduring allure of this delectable phenomenon, which has been used to express love, to flaunt wealth, to pay debts, and to venerate the gods. Among the more than 200 objects on view are pre-Columbian ceramics and ritual objects; European silver and porcelain chocolate services; 19th- and 20th-century cocoa tins and advertisements; holiday and festival candy molds; botanical specimens; and agricultural tools.