Galleries

Works of art in the Museum's collection are on display in more than four hundred numbered galleries throughout the Main Building and The Cloisters. Overview descriptions of the galleries are organized by curatorial department to help you plan your visit.

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  The American Wing
  

  Ever since its establishment in 1870 the Museum has acquired important examples of American Art. A separate "American Wing" building to display the domestic arts of the seventeenth–early nineteenth centuries opened in 1924; paintings galleries and an enclosed sculpture court were added in 1980.

  73 Galleries within The American Wing

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  Ancient Near Eastern Art
  

  The galleries for Ancient Near Eastern Art present objects in contexts that illuminate their significance as well as their connections to the art of neighboring cultures. The works on view are richly varied in terms of their materials, date, and the cultures which created them, but all partake in a common visual language.

  7 Galleries within Ancient Near Eastern Art

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  Arms and Armor
  

  Approximately eight hundred objects from the collection are on permanent display in the arms and armor galleries located in The John Pierpont Morgan Wing. These date from about the fifth to the late nineteenth century and offer a broad range of the best examples from Europe, America, Japan, India, and various Islamic cultures. In addition, the Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Gallery has periodically changing displays that focus on varied aspects of the collection.

  11 Galleries within Arms and Armor

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  Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
  

  The Museum's collection of art of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America comprises more than eleven thousand works of art of varied materials and types, representing diverse cultural traditions from as early as 3000 B.C.E. to the present. Works in the collection are housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, a 40,000-square-foot space on the south side of the Museum. Galleries within the wing are organized geographically.

  9 Galleries within Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas

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  Asian Art
  

  The Florence and Herbert Irving Asian Wing, occupying 64,500 square feet, is devoted to Asian art, featuring paintings, prints, calligraphy, sculptures, metalwork, ceramics, lacquers, works of decorative art, and textiles from East Asia, South Asia, the Himalayan kingdoms, and Southeast Asia. The galleries are arranged geographically and chronologically; an exploration of the works on view yields both an appreciation of the art of Asia's many cultures and an understanding of the ties between these traditions. Certain gallery installations, such as those of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and Tibetan paintings, rotate every six months, and displays of more fragile textiles, lacquers, and woodblock prints change approximately every four months.

  53 Galleries within Asian Art

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  The Cloisters
  

  The Cloisters museum and gardens, the Metropolitan's branch museum dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe, is located on four acres overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan's Fort Tryon Park.

  18 Galleries within The Cloisters

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  The Costume Institute
  

  The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-five thousand costumes and accessories represents five continents and seven centuries of fashionable dress, regional costumes, and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

  2 Galleries within The Costume Institute

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  Drawings and Prints
  

  The Museum's collection of drawings and prints comprises more than seventeen thousand drawings, 1.2 million prints, and twelve thousand illustrated books created in Western Europe and America, principally from the fifteenth century to the present. Because of their fragile nature and susceptibility to fading, drawings and prints can only be exhibited intermittently and for short periods of time (approximately three months) under carefully controlled, low-lighting conditions. Works of art not hanging in the galleries may be viewed, by appointment, in the Study Rooms for Drawings and Prints.

  4 Galleries within Drawings and Prints

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  Egyptian Art
  

  The Museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately twenty-six thousand objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (ca. 300,000 B.C.–A.D. 4th century). Virtually the entire collection is on display in the Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art, with objects arranged chronologically over thirty-nine rooms.

  39 Galleries within Egyptian Art

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  European Paintings
  

  The Metropolitan's world-famous collection of European paintings covers the period from ca. 1230 to 1900, offering a survey of the history of painting in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain. It is divided into two suites of galleries: one devoted to the Old Masters and the other to the nineteenth century.

  72 Galleries within European Paintings

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  European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
  

  The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century.

  56 Galleries within European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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  Greek and Roman Art
  

  The Greek and Roman galleries reveal classical art in all of its complexity and resonance. The objects range from small, engraved gemstones to black-figure and red-figure painted vases to over-lifesize statues and reflect virtually all of the materials in which ancient artists and craftsmen worked: marble, limestone, terracotta, bronze, gold, silver, and glass, as well as such rarer substances as ivory and bone, iron, lead, amber, and wood.

  27 Galleries within Greek and Roman Art

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  Islamic Art
  

  On November 1, 2011, the Department of Islamic Art reopened its fifteen galleries after an eight-year renovation. The new galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia were renovated and reorganized in accordance with current thinking in the field and with modern museological practices.

  15 Galleries within Islamic Art

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  The Robert Lehman Collection
  

  The Robert Lehman Collection is one of the most distinguished privately assembled art collections in the United States. 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.

  13 Galleries within The Robert Lehman Collection

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  Medieval Art
  

  More than fourteen hundred objects on view in the Main Building allow visitors to trace the history of medieval and Byzantine Art, from their roots in Celtic and late Roman art to the sumptuous objects of late medieval courts and the ecclesiastical riches of Late Byzantium and its eastern neighbors.

  8 Galleries within Medieval Art

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  Modern and Contemporary Art
  

  The Metropolitan Museum has collected and exhibited work by living artists since its founding in 1870. Today, the department's holdings comprise more than twelve thousand works of art across a broad range of media from 1900 to the present.

  30 Galleries within Modern and Contemporary Art

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  Musical Instruments
  

  More than eight hundred objects are displayed in The André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments, with one hall devoted to Western instruments, arranged by type or family, and the other to non-Western instruments, grouped geographically.

  4 Galleries within Musical Instruments

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  Photographs
  

  The Museum's three galleries devoted to photographic works from the permanent collection feature installations and exhibitions spanning the full history of the medium from its invention to the present day and representing a variety of subjects, processes, and countries of origin. Gallery installations change on a four- to eight-month rotation and occasionally feature works on loan from private and public collections, in addition to highlights of the Metropolitan's rich holdings. Larger special exhibitions of photography are frequently held in the adjacent galleries for drawings, prints, and photographs (Gallery 691 and 692).

  3 Galleries within Photographs

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