Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met",[a] is the largest art museum in the United States. Its permanent collection contains over two million works,[1] divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue, along the Museum Mile on the eastern edge of Central Park in Manhattan's Upper East Side, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries. A much smaller second location, The Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, contains an extensive collection of art, architecture, and artifacts from medieval Europe.

The museum's permanent collection consists of works of art from classical antiquity and ancient Egypt, paintings, and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanian, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes, and accessories, as well as antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from 1st-century Rome through modern American design, are installed in its galleries.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 to bring art and art education to the American people. The Fifth Avenue building opened on February 20, 1872, at 681 Fifth Avenue. In 2020, it was closed for 202 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and attracted only 1,124,759 visitors. This was a drop of 83 percent from 2019, but the Met still ranked ninth on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.

The Smithsonian gives an approximate number for artifacts and specimens of 146 million.[42] More specifically, the collections include 30 million insects, 4.5 million plants preserved in the Museum's herbarium, and 7 million fish stored in liquid-filled jars.[43] The National Collection of Amphibians and Reptiles has more than tripled from 190,000 specimen records 1970 to over 580,000 specimen records in 2020.[44][45] Of the 2 million cultural artifacts, 400,000 are photographs housed in the National Anthropological Archives.[43] Through off-site active loan and exchange programs, the museum's collections can be accessed.[46] As a result, 3.5 million specimens are out on loan every year.[43] The rest of the collections not on display are stored in the non-public research areas of the museum and at the Museum Support Center, located in Suitland, MD.[47] Other facilities include a marine science center in Ft. Pierce, Florida and field stations in Belize, Alaska, and Kenya.

Collections

The Great Hall

The Smithsonian gives an approximate number for artifacts and specimens of 146 million.[42] More specifically, the collections include 30 million insects, 4.5 million plants preserved in the Museum's herbarium, and 7 million fish stored in liquid-filled jars.[43] The National Collection of Amphibians and Reptiles has more than tripled from 190,000 specimen records 1970 to over 580,000 specimen records in 2020.[44][45] Of the 2 million cultural artifacts, 400,000 are photographs housed in the National Anthropological Archives.[43] Through off-site active loan and exchange programs, the museum's collections can be accessed.[46] As a result, 3.5 million specimens are out on loan every year.[43] The rest of the collections not on display are stored in the non-public research areas of the museum and at the Museum Support Center, located in Suitland, MD.[47] Other facilities include a marine science center in Ft. Pierce, Florida and field stations in Belize, Alaska, and Kenya.

The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection.[2] The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.[9] It is the world's most visited museum, averaging 15,000 visitors per day, 65 percent of whom are foreign tourists.

Location and visit

The Hall of Dinosaurs has fossilized skeletons and cast models, including Tyrannosaurus rex cast facing a Triceratops cast. The Triceratops exhibit shows the first accurate dinosaur skeleton in virtual motion, achieved through the use of scanning and digital technology."[58][59] The collection consists of 46 "complete and important specimens" of dinosaurs.

Before the Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space under the Louvre Pyramid, or Hall Napoléon, which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the passage Richelieu connecting to the nearby rue de Rivoli. A secondary entrance at the Porte des Lions, near the western end of the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 but is not permanently open.

The museum's entrance conditions have varied over time; artist visitors long had privileged access, a feature that has disappeared over time. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-days "weeks" (French: décades), the first six days of which were reserved for visits by artists and foreigners and the last three for visits by the general public.[13]:37 In 1824, a new regulation allowed public access only on Sundays and holidays; the other days the museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays.[13]:39 That changed in 1855 when the museum became open to the public all days except Mondays.[13]:40 It was free until 1922, when an entrance fee was introduced except on Sundays.[13]:42 Since its post-World War II reopening in 1946,[13]:43 the Louvre has been closed on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the public the rest of the week except for some holidays.

The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.