How do you move a whole museum-full of art?

Very slowly. Over the past 11 weeks, staffers and volunteers at the Taubman Museum of Art have been wrapping, boxing, crating and otherwise readying more than 2,000 artworks for the move from the museum's old quarters at Center in the Square to the new $66 million building two blocks away.

The move itself was conducted over the past two weeks with great secrecy and police protection to foil potential art thieves. The officers were hired off-duty to escort the movers and had no problems, Roanoke police spokeswoman Aisha Johnson said.

A team of professional art handlers moved the bulk of the collection across the Roanoke City Market to the new museum in a climate-controlled truck. The move was largely completed by Friday and was accomplished without damage to the art, Museum Collections Manager Mary LaGue said.

The artworks and artifacts ranged from $1 million paintings to artist Thomas Eakins' microscope to a collection of Judith Leiber handbags whose rococo ornamentation has been compared to Faberge eggs.

They now sit in climate-controlled storage at the new museum, while deputy director of art David Brown decides just where in the galleries to put them.

Before the professional art movers arrived, the preparation work was done primarily by LaGue, Assistant Registrar Andrea Hagy and a trusted group of volunteers, many with backgrounds in practical problem solving rather than the realms of art, LaGue said.

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