"Armor for the Joust of Peace" at the Met The Great Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is such a busy place that it's easy to miss the artworks periodically on view there. Two 1967-68 silk-screens of Warhol's "Flowers" - a teaser to "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years," opening on Tuesday - were recently hung on the eastern side of the hall. A colossal statue of a pharaoh, weighing about nine tons, sits regally on the north side. The pharaoh is about to be stared down by a German jouster on a colorfully clad horse. Starting Monday installers will begin putting together "Armor for the Joust of Peace," from about 1500 and purchased by the Met in 1904, one of the museum's earliest acquisitions. As the collection grew in scope and importance, this armor was banished to storage; it has been nearly 25 years since it has been on display. "It's evocative and wonderful, but when we reinstalled the galleries in 1991 and studied the collection, we decided it didn't match up to the high level of acquisitions that were made more recently," said Stuart W. Pyhrr, the curator in charge of the Met's arms and armor department. The armor is assembled from pieces made around the same time in the 16th century but that came from different sources. The helmet and shield are modern replacements for missing originals. The skillfully forged helmet was made in Paris in 1891 by Daniel Tachaux, an armorer who, in 1909, was hired by Bashford Dean, the Met's first curator of arms and armor to set up an armor conservation workshop at the museum, which is still active. Mr. Pyhrr said that when he and his curators were thinking of a way to celebrate the department's centennial exhibition, opening on Oct. 2, someone jokingly remarked: "Everyone grew up with that jousting figure, so wouldn't it be great to put it in the Great Hall?" What started as a flippant suggestion is becoming a reality. The armor is a special type worn in Germany and Austria for the "joust of peace," a sporting contest that challenges aim and horsemanship. Two armored contestants on horseback, armed with blunt lances, try to knock their opponent off his horse or to break their lances against their opponent's armor. The horse's eyes are covered by a protective steel plate, so the rider has complete control. To protect the riders the armor had to be especially thick, heavy and rigid, Mr. Pyhrr explained, and the helmet well padded to guard against whiplash. Leg armor, however, was not necessary since blows below the belt were forbidden. The horse is dressed up in brightly colored brocade and velvet coverings. There is a matching velvet, straw-filled bumper across its chest to protect the horse and the rider's legs in case of a collision. "It's a contest that was fought outdoors in an open field," Mr. Pyhrr said, with stands full of cheering spectators. "There was pageantry, color and high drama," he added. It was the major spectator sport of the period. Picasso designed sets for the Ballets Russes; Robert Rauschenberg for Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Trisha Brown. Younger artists have collaborated with choreographers and dancers too, like David Salle who has been working with Karole Armitage since the mid-1980s. When Dodie Kazanjian, director of Gallery Met, the six-year-old space in the south lobby of the Metropolitan Opera, was thinking of an artist to create work for an exhibition inspired by Thomas Adès's opera "The Tempest," Mr. Salle seemed like a natural. "While so many artists today are working with film and video, David is one of the few who, since the beginning of his career, has involved himself with live theater," Ms. Kazanjian said. She said she had been following Mr. Salle's career for years. "When I saw his last show at Mary Boone in May 2011, there was a kind of simplicity and beauty to the painting that has been in my head ever since," she said. I particularly liked the way he tackled new territory by putting a horizon line in the work. He's also been using acrylic with oil paint, and it's opened up the picture plane for him. Based on the Shakespeare play, Mr. Adès's "Tempest," from 2004, is receiving its Met debut this fall in a production directed by Robert Lepage. For the exhibition "Ariel and Other Spirits," opening on Sept. 25, Mr. Salle is producing about five oil and acrylic paintings and several watercolors. He has also created a banner that will be hung on the facade of the opera house early next month. "I decided to concentrate on two primal images from the play: the tempest itself - the storm and shipwreck and its aftermath - and the strange moody island full of spirits," Mr. Salle said in an e-mail. I was interested in the jumpy, malleable, flying-through-the-air feeling that I found in the play - and the music. Fall has not officially begun, but already there is news of new partnerships, like the Paris-London team of dealers, Connery, Pissarro, Seydoux. And there are some breakups too - or at least partial breakups. After seven years Robert Mnuchin and Dominique Lévy, partners in L&M Arts, are splitting their Manhattan operation as of January. Mr. Mnuchin will continue to run the existing L&M space at 45 East 78th Street but it will be called the Mnuchin Gallery. Ms. Lévy said in a telephone interview this week that she was close to finding a space of her own, also on the Upper East Side, where she will run the Dominique Lévy Gallery, devoted to postwar and contemporary art. She aims to be open by the spring. The dealers are, however, remaining partners in L&M Los Angeles, a two-year-old gallery in Venice, Calif. "L.A. is different," Ms. Lévy said. It's very contemporary. It's also something we really built together.