A room within the Robert Lehman Collection at The Met with red walls displays framed Renaissance religious paintings, a dark ornate chest, and wooden furniture.

The Robert Lehman Collection

About Us

The Robert Lehman Collection is one of the most distinguished privately assembled art collections in the United States. Robert Lehman's bequest to The Met, a collection of extraordinary quality and breadth acquired over the course of sixty years, is a remarkable example of twentieth-century American collecting. Spanning seven hundred years of western European art, from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries, the 2,600 works include paintings, drawings, manuscript illumination, sculpture, glass, textiles, antique frames, maiolica, enamels, and precious jeweled objects.

The collection of approximately three hundred paintings is particularly rich in the field of the Italian Renaissance, notably the Sienese school, as well as early Northern European works. Included in the 750 Old Master drawings ranging from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries is a significant group of eighteenth-century Venetian works, as well as other distinguished Italian, French, and Northern European examples. The collection is also renowned in several areas of decorative arts: Renaissance maiolica, Venetian glass, and antique frames.

Our History

Robert Lehman's parents, Philip and Carrie Lehman, laid the foundation for the collection around 1905, when they began acquiring works of art for their recently completed townhouse on West 54th Street in New York City. Robert Lehman assembled his collection with scholarly knowledge, astute connoisseurship, and skillful negotiation of the art market. Upon his death in 1969, he bequeathed 2,600 works to The Met with the stipulation that they be exhibited as a private collection, reflecting his belief that "important works of art, privately owned, should be beyond one's own private enjoyment and [that] the public at large should be afforded some means of seeing them." A new wing, erected to display the collection, opened to the public in 1975. The Robert Lehman Wing includes a central skylit gallery surrounded by a series of rooms intended to recreate the Lehman family residence. Velvet wall coverings, draperies, furniture, and rugs evoke the ambience of private interiors and serve as a backdrop for this extraordinary collection.

Read more about the history of the collection (PDF).


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The Right Hand of God Protecting the Faithful against the Demons, Jean Fouquet  French, Tempera and gold leaf on parchment
Jean Fouquet
ca. 1452–1460
Standing Cup and Cover Supported by an Enchained Turk, Jade (nephrite), aragonite, chalcedony, banded agate, gold, silver gilt, diamonds, rubies, garnets, enamel, and paint., German, perhaps Frankfurt-am-Main
German, perhaps Frankfurt-am-Main
ca. 1705–11
Christ Carrying the Cross, El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)  Greek, Oil on canvas
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos)
ca. 1577–87
Dish: The Destruction of the Hosts of Pharaoh, Master IC (probably Jean Court) or French, Limoges, Painted enamel on copper, partly gilt.
Master IC (probably Jean Court)
Jean Cour (or Court)
probably early 17th century
Saints Bartholomew and Simon, Master of Saint Francis  Italian, Tempera and gold on wood, Italian, Umbria
Master of Saint Francis
1266–75
Aquamanile in the Form of Aristotle and Phyllis, Bronze; Quaternary copper alloy (approx. 72% copper, approx. 17% zinc,<br/>approx. 6% lead, approx. 3% tin)., South Netherlandish
South Netherlandish
late 14th or early 15th century
House behind Trees, Georges Braque  French, Oil on canvas
Georges Braque
1906–7
Adoration of the Shepherds, Francesco di Marco Marmitta da Parma  Emilian, Tempera and gold on parchment
Francesco di Marco Marmitta da Parma
ca. 1500
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