from the National Library of France. This is an exposition of the original works of Theodore Chasseriau (1819-56), an acclaimed painter born in El Limon, Samana. Works by the master of French romantic painting can be seen at the likes of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Art Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Along with the exhibitions, the Leon Center carries out a proactive cultural program with talks, creativity workshops, seminars, conferences, congresses, courses, debates, themed temporary exhibitions, contests and festivals, for which it has classrooms and multi-purpose halls, as well as its own modern auditorium with a capacity for 200 people. The activities schedule is available from the center's Web site at http://www.centroleon.org.do

Among the state-of-the-art facilities there is the Mediateca, an innovative digital library service that is open to art and cultural researchers, teachers, artists, art critics and the general public The library possesses over 14,000 volumes on Latin American and Caribbean art as well as a database on Dominican art, culture and environment These are all catalogued using digital systems to enable quick and easy access to the resources. The informatics systems provide in-depth information on the objects in the bibliographical, anthropological and visual art collections.

While the collections, presentations and the Mediateca are impressive, the greatest asset of the Centra Leon lies in what goes on behind the scenes. Since 1999, when the handling and valorization of the collections began, the center has received valuable anthropologic and bibliographic collections through loans and donations that will eventually be shown. The center has installed facilities for the storage of these treasures, in compliance with international conservation norms, and a highly-skilled staff oversees their conservation, cataloguing, photo-documentation and physical archiving of the collections.

The first-time visitor, upon observing how modern the museum is, will not be able to avoid thinking "it doesn't feel like one is in Santo Domingo." But on second thought, they will observe, that of course they are not in Santo Domingo. They are in Santiago de los Caballeros.

Even when the original intention was simply to house works of ait with its provocative statements and the surprises that wait around every corner, the Centra Leon transcends the ordinary and becomes itself a true work of art and a source of Cibaeno pride for the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean.