On February 20, 1872, The Metropolitan Museum of Art officially opened to the public for the first time. Its trustees had spent the last seven years conceptualizing the museum, obtaining funds and permits, and building a collection of interesting artifacts. When the museum opened in a small, leased building in 1872, it contained somewhere around 200 works of art. Now, the Met contains over 1.5 million significant artifacts and works of art. It is one of the most visited museums in the world.

In 1866, a group of American ex-patriates who were living in Paris decided they wanted to open an art gallery in New York. One among them, a lawyer named John Jay, approached the Union League Club of New York for help raising funds and applying for incorporation from the city. On April 13, 1870, the city of New York granted the fledgling enterprise an Act of Incorporation. According to an article published in The Art Journal in 1875, the incorporation was granted “under the title of ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Art,’ to be located in the city of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and Library of Art, for encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and practical life; of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular knowledge and instruction.” In November of that year, the museum purchased its first artifact: a Roman sarcophagus. It was the acquisition the next year that allowed the museum to have enough works to show to the public. In 1871, the museum purchased 174 European paintings whose artists included van Dyck and Tiepolo. In 1872, the museum trustees signed a lease on the Dodworth Building and built out their exhibits.

The opening, according to the museum’s president, John Taylor Johnston, was “a fine turnout of ladies and gentlemen and all were highly pleased. The pictures looked splendid, and compliments were so plenty and strong that I was afraid the mouths of the Trustees would become chronically and permanently fixed in a broad grin.” The museum ran in the Douglas Building until 1873, when a larger space became necessary. It remained opened to the public six days a week with an admission price of .25¢, though Mondays were free. In 1880, the museum moved to its current location in Central Park and there it remains, receiving about 7 million visitors each year.

Learn more here:

1. https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/features/2012/this-weekend-in-met-history-february-20#:~:text=One%20hundred%20and%20forty%20years,public%20for%20the%20first%20time.
2. https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/history
3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20568619?searchText=metropolitan+museum+of+art+history&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmetropolitan%2Bmuseum%2Bof%2Bart%2Bhistory&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A5573b2aff2fba768d851943a017f1577&seq=1
4. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/metropolitan-museum-of-art-opens-in-new-york-city