The Metropolitan Museum of Art (a.k.a. “The Met”), located on 5th Avenue between East 80th Street and East 84th Streets, is the largest art museum in the United States, and one of the three largest in the world, with the most significant art collections. The Museum was founded in 1870 by a group of American businessmen, financiers, artists and intellectuals. Officially opened in 1872, it was originally located at 681 Fifth Avenue (where New York designer Tommy Hilfiger has his flagship retail store these days)

The Met’s permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided among seventeen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan’s Museum Mile, is by area one of the world’s largest art galleries. There is also a much smaller second location at “The Cloisters” in Upper Manhattan (a.k.a. Washington Heights) that features medieval art.

Represented in the permanent collection are 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 also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine, and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. Several notable interiors, ranging from 1st-century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met’s galleries.