Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York Arts Gallery, The Met: History, Permanent Collection Highlights, Exhibitions.


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Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

Contents

History
Permanent Collection
Ancient Near Eastern Art (Prehistory and Classical Antiquity)
Egyptian Art
Greek & Roman Art
Department of Medieval Art
Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
Asian Art
Islamic Art
American Decorative Arts
American Paintings & Sculpture
The Robert Lehman Collection
European Paintings
European Sculpture & Decorative Arts
Modern Art
Photograph Department
Other Departments

The New York "Met", one of America's top fine art institutions, is one of the best art museums in the world, with a collection of almost three million objects covering virtually every era and culture. It attracts more than five million visitors each year. Founded in 1870, it is situated in Central Park on Fifth Avenue between 80th and 84th Streets. It employs about 1,800 full-time employees, assisted by some 900 volunteers.


MASSACHUSETTS
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
J Paul Getty Museum Los Angeles
OTHER TOP ART MUSEUMS
Art Institute of Chicago
Detroit Institute of Arts
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts Houston

BEST EUROPEAN GALLERIES
See: Art Museums in Europe.

ART EDUCATION: NEW YORK
For the best art and design
classes in New York City
see: New York Art Schools.
For courses across America, see:
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AMERICAN SCULPTURE
For details of the Top 40
3-D artists in America, see:
American Sculptors (1850-present)

PAINTING EXHIBITIONS
For details of any important art
shows being staged at the
Metropolitan Museum New York,
see: Art News Headlines.

JEWISH ART
For an outstanding collection of
Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Oriental
Judaica, crafts and artifacts,
see: Jewish Art Museum.

History of the Met

Incorporated in 1870, the Met first opened on February 20, 1872 in premises on 681 Fifth Avenue. Its first President and main benefactor was John Taylor Johnston, a railroad company executive. The fledgling museum rapidly outgrew its allocated space and in 1873 moved to the Douglas Mansion at 128 West 14th Street. These arrangements were only temporary however, as the Museum had already acquired a large a red-brick stone building, designed by American architect Calvert Vaux on the east side of Central Park, which duly became its permanent home. (See also: American Architecture 1600-present.) Since then, a large number of new gallery spaces and architectural features have been added, including the Met's distinctive Beaux-Arts facade, designed by Richard Morris Hunt (1827-95), completed in 1926. The museum now extends a quarter mile in length and occupies more than two million square feet.

Permanent Collection

The museum's permanent collection, divided into nineteen separate departments, each run by a specialized group of curators, encompasses works of prehistoric art from early Mediterranean civilization including the cultures of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome, plus painting and sculpture by most European Old Masters, and a comprehensive collection of American and modern art. The museum also has a world class display of artwork from African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic cultures, plus extensive collections of antique weapons, armour, musical instruments, costumes and accessories. In addition to its main New York exhibitions, the Met stages numerous travelling exhibitions throughout the year.

 

 

Ancient Near Eastern Art (Prehistory and Classical Antiquity)

From the late 1800s onwards, the Met started to collect ancient art and artifacts from the Middle East. Beginning with an assortment of cuneiform tablets and seals, the Met's collection of Middle Eastern art has expanded to more than 7,000 items, dating from the Neolithic era (c.8,000 BCE) to the Arab conquest of the 7th century CE. Its exhibits of stone reliefs, statuary and statuettes, ivory, and precious metalwork represents the entire history of the Near East, notably the Sassanian Empire, the end of Late Antiquity, as well as styles of Sumerian art (4500-2270 BCE), Assyrian art (1500-612 BCE) and Hittite art (1600-1180 BCE) from the Levantine Bronze Age. Highlights of the Met's Mid-East collection include a series of stone lammasu, or guardian figures, commissioned by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. See also the British Museum, which has one of the largest collections of Middle Eastern art.

Egyptian Art

The Met's massive collection of art from Ancient Egypt - amounting to some 36,000 separate pieces - is displayed in the museum's 40 Egyptian galleries. Representing the history of the country during the Early Dynastic Period (c.3100-2686 BCE) the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms (c.2686-1069 BCE), the Intermediate periods, Greek and Roman rule until roughly 350 CE), the collection features a variety of relief sculpture, statues, stelae, funerary objects, jewellery, everyday artifacts, and architecture. Highlights of the Met's Egyptian collection include the reassembled sandstone Temple of Dendura, as well as a set of 24 wooden models, from a tomb in Deir el-Bahri in 1920, depicting a detailed illustration of Egyptian life in the early Middle Kingdom.

Greek & Roman Art

Consisting of some 35,000 items dating from as far back as c.2500 BCE, but mainly covering the early period of Classical Antiquity, from the 1st Millennium BCE to approximately 320 CE, the Met's collection of Greek art and Roman art includes a wide diversity of sculpture (marble and bronze), ceramics (including black-figure and red-figure vases, and terracotta sculpture), and mural paintings, as well as items of decorative art such as jewellery, precious metalwork, glass and other functional artifacts. Hightlights of the Met's Greco-Roman collection include the Euphronios krater (ornate drinking vessel), the monumental Amathus sarcophagus, and the magnificent Etruscan Monteleone chariot. Among the Met's earliest works in this department are a series of early Cycladic sculptures from the third millennium BCE. Other notable exhibits within the museum's 60,000 square feet of Greek and Roman galleries are a number of large-scale wall paintings, including a complete "bedroom suite" excavated from a villa in Pompeii, which was entombed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Department of Medieval Art

The Met's collection of medieval art consists of approximately 11,000 items, divided between the main museum building on Fifth Avenue and The Cloisters. The latter is a separate building located in Fort Tryon Park which is dedicated exclusively to medieval art, and houses the collection donated to the museum by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Its name derives from the five medieval French cloisters whose remains were incorporated into the building's architecture. The Cloisters' collection features a range of early Christian art including a large number of items of historical importance from medieval Europe, including illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, paintings, tapestries, stained glass, metalwork, and other decorative pieces.

The Medieval exhibition in the main building numbers about six thousand objects, consisting of tapestries, funerary statuary, liturgical vessels, precious metals and ivories, along with an extensive range of Western art (c.400-1530 CE), notably Byzantine and pre-medieval European antiquities not displayed in the Ancient Greek and Roman collection.

Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

This department houses the Met's collections of African art, antiquities and artifacts from the Americas (north and south) and Oceania, including Pre-Columbian art, dating from 2000 BCE. It received a huge boost in 1969, when Nelson A. Rockefeller gifted his 3,000-item collection to the museum, and now comprises some 11,000 pieces displayed in the 40,000-square-foot Rockefeller Wing. Highlights of the Met's African, Oceanic, and the American collection include examples of tribal art from around the globe, Australian Aboriginal Paleolithic art, as well as a priceless assembly of ceremonial and personal items from the Nigerian Court of Benin. Also includes numerous artifacts of native American Indian art from across the US.

Art of Asia

The Met's collection of Asian art encompasses Chinese art (from ancient and modern China) and Japanese art (from the Jomon era onwards) as well as works of Korean art and other south-east Asian cultures. Reputedly the most comprehensive of its kind in the West, it consists of more than 60,000 objects representing over four millennia of Asian culture from every Asian civilization. It includes all types of decorative art, such as fan paintings, painted hand-scolls, wood-block prints, bronzes, metalwork, Chinese pottery - including masterpieces from the era of Ming Dynasty art - including examples of Chinese lacquerware and jade carving, silks, and other textiles. Highlights of the Met's Asian collection include an extensive range of calligraphy and painting, and a complete Ming Dynasty garden court, modelled on the Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets in Suzhou.

Islamic Art

The Met's collection of Islamic art consists of 12,000 items, the majority created for religious or decorative use in mosques. It encompasses a very wide range of 2-D and 3-D works, including illuminated manuscripts, calligraphy, paintings, ancient pottery and textiles, from Islamic cultures in Central and Southern Asia and elsewhere across the globe. Highlights of the Met's Islamic collection include famous miniature paintings from Iran and Mughal painting from the Indian subcontinent, as well as calligraphic texts from the Qur'an (Koran) and Suleiman the Magnificent. For other important library and museum collections of Muslim culture, see: Museums of Islamic Art.

American Decorative Arts

The Met's American Decorative Art Department consists of roughly 12,000 pieces of decorative art - comprising stained glass, ceramics, silver, pewter, furniture and textiles - dating from the late 17th to the early 20 century. Initiated by the 1909 donation from Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, the collection was only properly started in 1934. Highlights include the comprehensive collection of American stained glass, featuring a number of pieces by Louis Comfort Tiffany, and the silver collection with many pieces by Paul Revere.

 

American Paintings & Sculpture

The Met's collection of American art (painting and sculpture) now numbers more than 1,000 paintings, 600 sculptures, and 2,600 drawings from the early Colonial period to the early twentieth century. It includes famous items from all painting genres including portrait art, landscape painting, genre-works, and still life. Highlights include many of the most famous American paintings such as the portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) as well as Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (1816-68). The Met's collection of American paintings also features masterpieces by artists like John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) - including his controversial picture Portrait of Madame X (1884) - James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), and Thomas Eakins (1844-1916).

Note: In 1929, the Met was offered the huge collection of American art owned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942) but turned it down!

Departments of Western Art

Started by a bequest of 670 drawings from Cornelius Vanderbilt, in 1880, the Met's collection of works of art on paper focuses on pieces by North American artists and on western European works created since the Middle Ages. The latter includes famous graphic art of the Renaissance, and after, by great master draughtsmen like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Anthony Van Dyck, Albrecht Durer, and Edgar Degas. In total, the collection consists of more than 11,000 drawings, twelve thousand illustrated books and 1.5 million prints.

The Robert Lehman Collection

Housed in its own wing, this 3,000-item private collection of paintings, drawings, and decorative arts from the Italian and Northern Renaissance through to the 20th century, was donated to the museum by the Robert Lehman Foundation in 1969. It concentrates on paintings of the Early Renaissance and High Renaissance, particularly the Sienese school, and features works by Botticelli and Domenico Veneziano, as well as by Spanish painters like El Greco and Goya.

European Paintings

The Met's collection of European paintings is relatively small (some 2,200 items) but of world class quality, featuring a significant number of the world's most recognizable paintings. It concentrates on Old Masters and nineteenth-century European oil paintings, with a special emphasis on French, Italian and Dutch painters, but also includes a wide range of canvases, panels, triptychs and frescoes by Italian, Flemish, Spanish, and British masters, from the 13th to the 19th century. It includes some of the greatest Renaissance paintings from north and south of the Alps. This is one of the highest-spending departments of the museum, and its highlights feature some of the world's great portrait paintings and some of the greatest genre paintings of the 17th century. The Met's collection of European fine art includes:

- Stroganoff Madonna and Child, by Duccio di Buoninsegna
- Last Communion of St Jerome, by Botticelli
- Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, by Rembrandt van Rijn
- Venus and The Lute Player, by Titian
- The Fortune-Teller, by Georges de la Tour
- View of Toledo, by El Greco
- The Musicians, by Caravaggio
- Juan De Pareja, by Velasquez
- The Harvesters, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
- The Abduction of The Sabine Women, by Nicolas Poussin
- Young Woman with a Water Jug/Pitcher (c.1662) by Jan Vermeer
- The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David
- Cypresses, by Van Gogh

See also our article: How To Appreciate Paintings.

In addition, the Met holds 5 masterpieces by Jan Vermeer, 18 Rembrandts, 35 paintings by Claude Monet, 21 works by Paul Cezanne and landscapes by many top artists including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

These works make it one of the best art museums in America.

"Met's Mona Lisa"

As part of its drive to acquire world class art, the Met recently spent $45 million on the 9 x 6 inch Madonna and Child by the important Sienese artist Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255-1319): a work which has been dubbed "the Met's Mona Lisa".

European Sculpture & Decorative Arts

The Met's European Sculpture and Decorative Arts collection comprises more than 50,000 objects from the early 15th to the early 20th century. Although rich in Italian Renaissance sculpture, it also has extensive holdings of furniture, jewellery, glass and ceramic art, metalwork, scientific instruments, tapestries, textiles, and clocks. Highlights include Bacchanal by Bernini, a cast of The Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin, and several unique sculptures by Jean-Antoine Houdon, including his Bust of Voltaire.

Modern Art

The Met's collection of Modern Art numbers some 10,000 items, predominantly by European and American artists, including works on paper, sculpture, design, and architecture from all major modern art movements and contemporary art movements of the 20th century. Highlights include Portrait of Gertrude Stein, by Picasso; White Flag, by Jasper Johns; Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), by Jackson Pollock; and Beginning (triptych) by Max Beckmann. Note that certain works of contemporary art may be held in other sections, like the American paintings department.

Photograph Department

The Met's collection of photographs consists of 20,000 photographs, prints and daguerreotypes, organized around the Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), Edward Steichen (1879-1973), Walker Evans, Gilman Paper Company, Ford Motor Company and Rubel collections. It features an extensive series of Photo-Secessionist works as well as collections of early British, French and American fine art photography, avant-garde works from Europe and America, plus contemporary photos from around the world.

Other Departments

The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses five other departments, as follows:

Arms & Armour
Featuring weapons and martial accessories for men and horses from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and America.

Costume Institute
Originally the Museum of Costume Art, it merged with the Met in 1937 to become its Costume Institute department. Featuring 80,000 costumes and accessories, the Costume department does not maintain a permanent installation, but holds two shows a year in the Met's galleries.

Musical Instruments
Initiated in 1889 by Lucy W. Drexel's donation of several hundred instruments to the museum, this collection comprises some 5,000 musical instruments from accordions to zithers.

Antonio Ratti Textile Center
Features carpets, tapestries, velvets, laces, embroideries, quilts, along with an extensive range of woven and printed fabrics from most cultures and civilizations, dating from 3000 BCE.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
General Information: 212-535-7710

• For details of the development of painting and sculpture, see: History of Art.
• For important dates and a chronology of events, see: Timeline: History of Art.
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