‘Heavenly Bodies’ sets heavenly record at Met Museum

NEW YORK (AP) — Fashion and Catholicism have trumped King Tut.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art says its just-closed fashion exhibit “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” has broken the record for most-visited exhibition, beating out the massive 1978 King Tut show.

The sumptuous and sprawling “Heavenly Bodies” at the Met’s Costume Institute was spread between the museum’s main Fifth Avenue location and its Cloisters branch uptown. The museum says the show brought in 1,659,647 visitors between the two locales.

In 1978, “Treasures of Tutankhamun” brought in 1,360,957 visitors.

“Heavenly Bodies” was the largest exhibit ever mounted at the Met, covering 60,000 square feet in 25 galleries. It was curated by Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s chief curator.