In the film, Rocky, the underdog and out-of-shape contender, does a daily, pre-dawn “battle with the steps” while the city sleeps.  Rocky is “beaten” by the steps day after day, but he keeps at it. 

The decade also began on an auspicious note for the collections. In 1990, the Museum was able to acquire a superb eighteenth-century Philadelphia secretary bookcase that had descended in the Willing and Cadwalader families, unmatched in importance in any public collection, as well as a spellbinding Mannerist masterpiece by the sixteenth-century Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius, entitled Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze. Both of these purchases were made possible by a major grant from the Annenberg Foundation (the Annenbergs had previously donated two rare and important Cézanne sketchbooks comprising over 120 drawings). Having been the first American museum to purchase a major painting by the African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (who grew up in Philadelphia) in 1899, the Museum was delighted to acquire in 1993 the tender and eloquent portrait of the artist's mother as the partial gift of Dr. Rae Alexander-Minter, Tanner's grand-niece.