Charles River Editors - The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The History and Legacy of America’s Largest Art Museum

By Charles River Editors

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A 1914 picture of the Met

The Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is unsurpassed at presenting more than 50 centuries of work. I go there constantly, seeing things over and over, better than I've ever seen them before. - Jerry Saltz

Americans are rightfully proud of much of their heritage, especially as it relates to the ideas of democracy and government. The country has spread its ideals throughout the world and rose, in just two short centuries, to a place of global leadership. However, when it comes to art and culture, theres never been any doubt how young the nation is, especially compared to much older nations across the Atlantic. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was created to assuage some of that, and to show the world that America could hold its own with the leading galleries of the rest of the world.

From the beginning, the Met has been unique, because unlike many European museums, the support for the sprawling New York City museum came from modern tycoons and philanthropists, instead of old families with wealth and land. Like the rest of the city, the museum grew quickly, as the millionaires of New York and other cities around the nation vied to see who could donate the most paintings or objects of art. Having ones work in the Met, or contributing to it, became something of a status symbol, a way to demonstrate prestige and importance. Having ones name on a gallery wall or a wing of the always expanding museum could cement a legacy.

At the same time, the Met has always been a place that anyone could visit. Its very charter insisted that patrons be welcomed and educated by what they saw during their visits, a goal the museum has kept in focus for nearly 150 years. And while many European museums cater primarily to tourists, the Met remains something of a hometown treasure for New York City, focusing much of its attention on recognizing and balancing the citys cultural diversity with the needs of its patrons of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The History and Legacy of Americas Largest Art Museum chronicles the remarkable history of the museum and highlights some of its most important pieces. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Met like never before.

By the early 19 th century, the Louvre in Paris had developed a reputation across Europe for both the quality and quantity of its holdings, making it the worlds most famous art museum. Writing in 1814, Sir Archibald Alison claimed, For an attempt of this kind, the Louvre presents singular advantages, from the unparalleled collection of paintings of every school and description which are there to be met with, and the facility with which you can there trace the progress of the art from its first beginning to the period of its greatest perfectionAnd it is in this view that the collection of these works into one museum, however much to be deplored as the work of unprincipled ambition, and however much it may have diminished the impression which particular objects, from the influence of association, produced in their native place, is yet calculated to produce the greatest of all improvements in the progress of the artby divesting particular schools and particular works of the unbounded influence which the effect of early association, or the prejudices of national feeling, have given them in their original situation, and placing them where their real nature is to be judged of by a more extended circle, and subjected to the examination of more impartial sentiments.

Thus, it should come as little surprise that the concept for a large, prestigious art museum was devised in Paris, the cultural and artistic heart of Europe. On July 4, 1869, a group of Americans met together in the French capital to celebrate the anniversary of Americas independence, and during the meeting, the issue of American culture arose. Years later, John Jay, a man described by one author as ceaseless in good works, recalled, "The simple suggestion that 'it was time for the American people to lay the foundation of a National Institution and Gallery of Art and that the American gentlemen then in Europe were the men to inaugurate the plan' commended itself to a number of the gentlemen present, who formed themselves into a committee for inaugurating the movement."

Their work paid off, and on April 13, 1870, the New York State Legislature voted into law an Act of Incorporation for an institution called the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The stated purpose of this organization, according to the Act, was for establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations. The first president, American businessman John Taylor Johnston, and the other officers were already in place, having been elected the previous January. On May 24, they held their first annual meeting and adopted a permanent constitution. They also committed themselves to raising $250,000 with which to build a museum and purchase collections.

Johnston

In the meanwhile, the museums first piece, a Roman sarcophagus found in Tarsus, arrived as a gift from J. Abdo Debbas, a native of Adana in southern Turkey and the American vice-consul in Tarsus. Debbas had discovered the sarcophagus in 1863 and was anxious to make a gift of it to the United States government. Since the government itself could not accept such an offering, J. Augustus Johnson, the American consul in Beirut, advised him to donate to the newly formed museum. It took 16 buffaloes to pull the wagon carrying the sarcophagus to the port at Mersin, where it was shipped to America.

By the time the sarcophagus arrived in New York, William Blodgett had worked with John Taylor Johnston to purchase 174 paintings for the museum's new collection, many of which remain housed at the Met today. This was something of a leap of faith, as the museum had not yet raised even half of the money it needed to open. However, plans went forth and the state legislature passed another act, with this one mandating that the new museum would be built "upon that portion of Central Park formerly known as Manhattan Square, or any other park, square or place.