The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) is the fourth most visited art museum in the world, located in New York, on Fifth Avenue. The Met was founded in 1870 by a group of American businessmen and art lovers. Nelson Rockefeller magnate and philanthropist, who donated his collection of 3000 items in 1969 made a great contribution to the development of the museum.

About 3 million unique pieces of art from the ancient world, American paintings, antique sculptures, musical instruments, weapons and more are kept in the New York Museum.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is famous for the world's best collections of Dutch paintings, including masterpieces by Rogier van der Weyden, Bosch, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the largest works of the Italian Renaissance: Botticelli, Raphael, Tintoretto, Titian.

The priceless and interesting collections and exhibits include:

• the oldest world’s piano, made in 1720;
• complete collection of “Colt” pistols and revolvers;
• the world’s largest collection of works by Rembrandt, consisting of 23 paintings;
• Ming Dynasty’s ceramic vases.
   

Interesting facts:

• It is necessary to attend the museum everyday during the week to see all the works of art.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art “starred” in several films. “The Thomas Crown Affair”, “Ocean’s Eight” are among them.
• The master florist of The Met Remco Van Vliet has been collecting five astonishing floral compositions for the Great Hall since 1967 every week. Reader’s Digest publishing house, whose owner wanted, that visitors admired not only with exhibits, but also with fresh flowers.

What else to see at The Met

Costume Institute. There is no permanent exhibition due to the fragility of the exhibits. However twice a year the Institute holds thematic exhibitions, dedicated to a specific designer or style. Costume Institute’s exhibitions tell about such legendary designers as Coco Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Gianni Versace and others.

Weapon and armor. The first items of collection were acquired in 1881. The exposition gained worldwide fame after that the two large collections of European and Japanese weapons brought the museum in 1904.

Collection of the Asian department. More than 35 000 exhibits cover about 4000 years of art history from all Asian civilizations. A small courtyard with a garden in the style of the Ming Dynasty is attracts a particular attention of visitors.

Art of the Ancient East. More than 7000 exhibits of the collection cover the period from the late Neolithic to the fall of the Sassanid state. A set of lamassu statues, that guarded the northwestern palace of the Assyrian king Ashur-nasir-pal II is the pride of the museum.

The museum has its own print publication, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, in which new acquisitions publishes once a year.

Resources: muzei-mira.com; wikipedia.org; zen.yandex.ru; architectureguru.ru; stylemeceo.wordpress.com; theblueprint.ru

Also read: 

• The Louvre Museum in Paris: unique collections of masterpieces of art