Two of the best exhibitions I’ve seen this year — Flesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum at the Kimbell in Fort Worth and The Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society at Houston’s MFA — are from a genre I usually detest.

The treasures or masterpiece show starts with a fetching theme, gathers what a museum might claim as its highlights, assembles a catalogue of babytalk scholarship and pretty pictures, and sends it on a tour for fast cash. Impressionist Gold of the Pharaohs and Czars kind of thing.