Boston

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The artist Luisa Rabbia, a resident artist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, was inspired by photographs that Stewart herself collected while traveling through China in 1883. Ms. Rabbia incorporated the photographs directly into her own artwork, assembling them to create a video of a fantasy landscape in which her own drawings play upon the Chinese pictures, layered with other images and music. The museum hosts a number of events to celebrate the exhibit, “Luisa Rabbia: Travels With Isabella, Travel Scrapbooks 1883/2008,” including an artist talk with Ms. Rabbia and the in-house curator of Contemporary Art, Pieranna Cavalchini. A gallery discussion with an art critic and gallery owner, Mario Diacono, “Summer Night,” will be followed by a DJ concert hosted by musician Fa Ventilato. Continuing in the spirit of rhythm and creativity, Mr. Ventilato and Ms. Rabbia chat several evenings later in “Animation and Sound: A Two-Part Process.” And a few days before the show’s conclusion, exhibit curator Alan Chong will give a lecture on “Memory and Invention and Personal Travel.” Artist talk, Saturday, June 28, 1:30 p.m.,”Summer Night,” Thursday, July 31, 7:30 p.m.; “Animation and Sound,” Thursday, September 18, 7 p.m.; “Memory and Invention,” Thursday, September 25, 6:30 p.m., exhibit through Sunday, September 28, Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 280 Fenway at Palace Road, 617-566-1401, $12 general, $10 seniors, $5 students, free for members.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sumo wrestlers have dominated Japanese society for centuries, not only in physical size but also in cultural presence. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has assembled “Sumo, Japan’s Big Sport,” an exhibit that chronicles Japan’s idolization of the ancient sport. In the 18th and 19th centuries, famous wrestlers and their matches were immortalized in woodblock prints; Japan’s finest contemporary wrestlers are treated as celebrities and frequently are the subjects of portraits. In the works of fantasy literature and animation on view at the museum, sumo competitors are depicted as heroes — legends who are truly larger than life. Through Sunday, August 3, Monday-Tuesday, 10 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-9:45 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Museum of Boston of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston, 617-267-9300, $17 general, $15 seniors and students, $6.50 children ages 7-17, free for members and children age 6 and under.

Boston Pops Orchestra

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of baseball’s unofficial anthem, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the Boston Pops Orchestra teams up with the National Baseball Hall of Fame to bring the roar of the stadium to the stage. The conductor of the Pops, Keith Lockhart, will lead a program of baseball-inspired music, such as John Philip Sousa’s “The National Game” and the soundtrack from “Field of Dreams” (1989), with video, images, and stories that evoke America’s favorite pastime. Tuesday, July 1, and Wednesday, July 2, 8 p.m., Boston Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Ave. Huntington Avenue, 617-266-1492, $19-$87.

Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents “Curious and Commonplace,” an exhibition of European popular prints from the 1800s. The show’s curators, Kevin Kriebel and John Ittmann, selected more than 80 works from the museum’s permanent collection. The pieces, which were sold on street corners and in shops across Europe, capture the daily routines common in the 19th century. Some of these inexpensive prints were used as teaching tools for alphabet or religious manuals, while others were decorative, depicting less conventional images, such as a star-crossed pair standing next to a magical machine that transforms unhappy husbands and wives into ideal couples. Madmen, circus performers, and reveling drinkers also appear in a rainbow of colors, eye-catching precursors to today’s billboards, cartoons, and pinups. Through Sunday, August 24, Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m.-8:45 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street at Benjamin Franklin Parkway, 215-763-8100, $14 general, $12 seniors, $10 students and children ages 13-18, free for members and children under 12, Sundays pay what you wish.

The Philadelphia Orchestra

A guest conductor, Rossen Milanov, will lead the Philadelphia Orchestra in a three-night series of “Best of…” concerts, bringing to the City of Brotherly Love symphonic favorites from various corners of the world. The first of the three programs, “Czech Mix,” celebrates the music of Eastern Europe, featuring Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances as well as works by Romania’s Grigora Dinicu and Vienna’s Johann Strauss Jr., among others. The second concert, “From Russia with Love,” highlights the music of five giants of Russian composition, including Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet score “The Sleeping Beauty” and Mussorgsky’s “A Night on Bald Mountain,” a brooding, dramatic work that recounts a witches’ Sabbath. The concert trio concludes with the “Best of…American Postcards,” an intermingling of theater, bandstand, folk, and bluegrass sounds grown from our own soil. The program includes Leonard Bernstein’s overture to “Candide,” Aaron Copland’s ballet “Appalachian Spring,” and “Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture,” Robert Russell Bennett’s snapshot arrangement of George Gershwin’s opera. Tuesday, June 24, through Thursday, June 26, 7p.m., Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, 260 South Broad St., between Spruce and Pine streets, 215-893-1999, $10-$113.

Washington, D.C.

The Sackler Gallery

The Smithsonian’s gallery focusing on Asian art has imported “Muraqqa’: Imperial Mughal Albums” from the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin. Mughal paintings and calligraphies provide a private view into the private lives of the emperors in the region of northern India between 1605 and 1658, depicting the imperial family in relaxed private settings. Many of the richly colored, intricately detailed artworks are full-page paintings, while others are collages of European, Persian, and Mughal pieces collected by the Emperors. On Saturday, August 3, Jason Frietag, professor of history at Ithaca College, gives a tour and talk on the mystical beliefs of Sufism and its role in the Mughal culture. Through Sunday, August 3, daily, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Ave. SW, between 7th and 12th streets, on the south side of the National Mall, 202-633-4880, free.

The National Gallery of Art

An exhibit of 228 artifacts from Afghanistan, many of which have never been seen in America, journeys to the National Gallery of Art this summer. A crossroads on the Silk Road that stretched from Asia to the Mediterranean, Afghanistan is rich with archaeological treasures dating from the year 2,200 before the common era to 200 common era. “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul” includes intricate gold and jeweled ornaments, bronze and stone sculptures, ivory carvings, painted glassware from Roman markets, and gold bowls with artistic links to Mesopotamia; screenings of short films and maps illustrating the locations of some 1,500 archaeological sites are also featured. The museum is also home to extensive European and American art collections, including works by national favorites such as Winslow Homer, Thomas Cole, and Frederick Remington, displayed in the museum’s East Wing. Through Sunday, September 7, National Gallery of Art, National Mall, Constitution Avenue NW, between 3rd and 7th streets, Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-6 p.m., free.

The Hillwood Museum

Summer is the time to see the Hillwood estate’s lush rose beds, rolling “Lunar Lawn,” and a Japanese-style garden. The house holds 18th- and 19th-century French and Russian objects, including two imperial Fabergé eggs, Beauvais tapestries designed by François Boucher, and a collection of costumes worn by former estate owner Marjorie Merriweather Post and her family. In-keeping with the royal atmosphere, high tea is offered in the museum café at 2:30 p.m. all summer. Through June, the museum holds a film series on Fridays at sundown as well as weekend workshops for adults and children, including garden talks and a special Bastille Day celebration on Sunday, July 13. Tuesday­-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday, June 22, July 13, and August 31, 1 p­-5 p.m., Hillwood Museum, Estate and Gardens, 4155 Linnean Ave. NW, 202-686-5807, $12 general, $10 seniors, $7 students, $5 children, hillwoodmuseum.org.