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The Origins of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870, New York had no major art museum. In the mid-19th century, the city's biggest cultural destination was PT Barnum's American Museum, where up to 15,000 people per day flocked to see attractions ranging from Siamese twins and live whales to performances of Shakespeare and opera by the singer Jenny Lind.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The founders of the Met wanted to create something entirely different-an encyclopedic collection of high art that would ultimately compete with Europe's greatest museums. The city's industrialists joined the board, along with esteemed painters and architects. They also gave the Museum its foundational collections.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met occupied a series of homes while its permanent home (on land negotiated from the city of New York) was being built. Designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wray Mould, the original museum was a high victorian structure that looked akin to a mausoleum. While ambitious, it was quickly deemed inappropriate. By 1902, the Museum had changed drastically, Richard Morris Hunt's renovations (the now-famous Fifth Avenue facade and Great Hall amongst others) had become the iconic spaces of the museum.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
In less than 20 years, by the late 1880s, the Museum was earning widespread attention. Works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo, and Vermeer hung on its walls. Gifts from the city's rich would keep flowing in for decades to come.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
There were drawings by Albrecht Durer from Felix Warburg, Marie Antoinette's furniture from William K. Vanderbilt and Italian lace from Mrs. John Jacob Astor. Then there were the thousands of medieval and Egyptian objects from the collection of J.P. Morgan, who served as a trustee and then president.
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Museum intended not only to build a world class collection of art, but also to teach visitors how to appreciate it. At first, it excluded the working class by closing on Sunday, the day they had off. Once the MET decided to stay open that day, curators, and directors stood watch in the galleries. Director Louis di Cesnola boasted of the results: "There is no more spitting tobacco juice on the gallery floors...no more whistling, singing or calling aloud to people from one gallery to another."
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
One story circulated about Mark Twain's protests when asked to leave his belongings in the cloak room: "Leave my cane! Leave my can!" he purportedly exclaimed. "How do you expect me to poke holes through the oil paintings?"
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
Now the Metropolitan Museum of Art is open 7 days a week and is suggested admission for all New Yorkers.
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