I expected The Rose Art Museum's vault to be a guarded dungeon at the bottom of a dark stairwell. After all, the storage space is where some of the greatest works of modern art find their home, and my expectations were set for something grand. What I came across, however, was even better than what I had imagined.The amount of quality art that the Rose Art Museum owns is surprising. For its small, intimate size and collegiate location, one would not suspect that behind the museum's 10,000-square-foot gallery, there lies an 18,000-square-foot storage area filled with around 8,000 paintings, sculptures, prints and photographs. The Rose is the home to the largest modern art collection in the region.

While maybe not as foreboding as a dungeon or intriguing as a hidden room, the vault is equally as dramatic. Upon entering (an act which requires both a key and a security code to unlock two foreboding double doors), the tour was greeted with a musty smell and a climate-controlled chill.

The heavy security made it feel like we were trespassing into every art lover's dream. Piles of paintings overflow from the shelves and a wall of chain-link fence screens are packed with hanging works. Stacks of boxes, cardboard and art cover every inch of the room with the exception of the small floor space in the center, which barely fits 15 people.

The entire setup appears less like an art sanctuary and more like an art jail.

As I became frustrated and a little bit confused with what seemed like poor maintenance of the vault, Raphaela Plateau, chief curator of the museum and our personal guide, pulled out a Czanne.

As one of the forefathers of Modernism and great names of Impressionism, Paul Czanne was undeniably groundbreaking, and seeing one of his paintings laid any thoughts about the room's dcor to rest. The piece ("Young Swimmer," left) was a gift to the museum in 1991. Small in size, its beauty is striking, set apart by its broad brush strokes and meticulous effort.

One of my favorites of the tour was Pablo Picasso's "Reclining Nude," also a gift to the museum in 1991. Seeing the Picasso up close yielded the same excitement and giddiness as the presence of a celebrity. The painting held emotion in its colors and fractured female subject, whose face and body seemed disjointed yet poised.

Also impressive Jim Dine's "Double Red Bathroom." Like the rest of Dine's work, this piece sets itself apart from other art with its three-dimensional components. The work consists of two connected canvases, both painted bright red with the occasional splatter or painted flower. Two medicine chests, a towel rack, a red toothbrush and even a red roll of toilet paper jut from the canvasses, crafting the image of a life-size bathroom wall.

Another personal favorite of mine was Roy Lichtenstein's "Forget It! Forget Me!" (above). The comic-like image depicts a distressed male "fed up" with his girlfriend. In addition to capturing the viewer's attention with its large size and bright colors, the work also stimulates identification with average teenage-dating frustrations. By getting up close and admiring the skill and precision that went into each individual dot, I appreciated a depth hard to absorb in a gallery setting

The newly acquired Andy Warhol portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was a refreshing image of the University's namesake depicted in bright colors-purple, green and red-in Warhol's typical print-with-paint style. The painting was also slightly bigger than I expected, juxtaposing a respectability with the works' more playful hues.

Despite the number of incredibly powerful paintings displayed in the vault, we barely scratched the surface of the works the vault holds.

The Rose Art Museum has specific criteria regarding gifts that it can accept, in order to allow it to continue with its mission of housing only modern and contemporary art. While each piece is considered on a case-by-case basis, condition and shelf life are also important factors considered when the museum accepts gifts.

Between the picky criteria and the hefty grants the museum receives, the Rose has been able to build a collection of both quantity and supreme quality.