Description of the attraction
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the largest art museums in the world and the second most visited after the Louvre. His collection contains over three million works of art.
History of the Metropolitan Museum
In 1870, a group of Americans (including banker John Taylor Johnston, publisher George Palmer Putnam, and artist Eastman Johnson) established the museum in an effort to give the American people access to art. The collection is based on private meetings of the founders and purchases made with donations from sponsors. However, at first, the museum did not have a serious budget; copies of paintings by European masters were ordered to replenish it.
But in 1901, millionaire Jacob Rogers bequeathed $ 4.5 million to the Metropolitan Museum. Other philanthropists followed suit, and the museum became a major art buyer. At the same time, the collection was replenished with donations. Catherine Lorillard Wolfe bequeathed 143 paintings and money, which were used to buy paintings "Madame Charpentier with the Children" by Renoir, "The Abduction of Rebekah" by Delacroix, "Death of Socrates" by David. Banker Benjamin Altman presented such masterpieces as Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, Vermeer's Sleeping Girl, and Dürer's Madonna and Child with Saint Anne. In 1969 philanthropist Robert Lehman donated to the museum his private collection of paintings, drawings, and works of European decorative and applied art of the XIV-XIX centuries - 2,600 works are exhibited in the New Wing, built specifically for this collection.
Metropolitan Museum collection
The Met, as the townspeople call it, acquired a unique spot in Central Park in the 19th century. In 1880, a building designed by architects Calvert Vox and Jacob Ray Mold was opened here - now it is not visible behind the numerous extensions that followed. The current complex is colossal: almost 200 thousand square meters of exhibition space. There are seventeen thematic sections dedicated to antiquity and Ancient Egypt, European masters, Islamic art, musical instruments, costume, weapons and armor, American and contemporary art.
The Meta collection has genuine masterpieces: originals of rock paintings of Australian aborigines (images about 40 thousand years old), figures of winged bulls with human heads of the era of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (IX century BC), drawings by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, sculptures Houdon and Rodin, paintings by Botticelli, El Greco, Velazquez.
The collection of the museum continues to grow today. The Met recently received an approximately $ 1 billion gift from the head of the cosmetic empire, Leonard Lauder: 78 paintings by Cubist artists, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger.
About half a million people visit the Metropolitan Museum per year. And although the recommended entrance ticket price is $ 25, the visitor has the right to pay any amount - they will be allowed in anyway.
On a note
- Location: 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street, New York
- Nearest tube stations: "86 Street" lines 4, 5, 6.
- Official website:
- Opening hours: Tuesday-Thursday, Sunday 9.30-17.30, Friday, Saturday 9.30-21.00, closed on Monday (excluding holidays), January 1, Thanksgiving, December 25.
- Tickets: for adults $ 25, for persons over 65 years old - $ 17, for students - $ 12, children under 12 years old accompanied by an adult - free of charge.
