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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collection spans 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.

Founded in 1870, the Metropolitan Museum is located in New York City's Central Park along Fifth Avenue (from 80th to 84th Streets). Last year it was visited by 4.7 million people.

Collection and Galleries
The Museum's two-million-square-foot building has vast holdings that represent a series of collections, each of which ranks in its category among the finest in the world. The American Wing, for example, houses the world's most comprehensive collection of American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts, presently including 24 period rooms that offer an unparalleled view of American history and domestic life. The Museum's approximately 2,500 European paintings form one of the greatest such collections in the world—Rembrandts and Vermeers alone are among the choicest, not to mention the collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist canvases. Virtually all of the 36,000 objects constituting the greatest collection of Egyptian art outside Cairo are on display, while the Islamic art collection is one of the world's finest.

Other major collections belonging to the Museum include arms and armor, Asian art, costumes, European sculpture and decorative arts, medieval and Renaissance art, musical instruments, drawings, prints, antiquities from around the ancient world, photography, and modern and contemporary art. More than a million objects are on view from every corner of the world.

Major galleries that in recent years have either been newly created or have undergone renovation and reinstallation include: the Greek and Roman Galleries, Galleries for Oceanic Art and the Gallery for Native North American Art, Galleries for 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture including the new Henry J. Heinz II Galleries, Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography, Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine Art and the Medieval Europe Gallery, Late Gothic Hall at The Cloisters, and the André Mertens Galleries for Musical Instruments. Major renovations now underway include the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia, scheduled for completion in late 2011, and The American Wing, the final phase of which (the paintings galleries) is scheduled to reopen in early 2012.

Address: 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, United States

Open Seven Days a Week:
Sunday–Thursday: 10 am–5:30 pm*
Friday and Saturday: 10 am–9 pm*

Customer service: +1 212-731-1498

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Internationally renowned for its rich collection of Impressionist art, the Musée d'Orsay also displays all Western artistic creation from 1848 to 1914. Its collections represent all expressive forms, from painting to architecture, as well as sculpture, the decorative arts and photography. You're sure to be dazzled by the beauty of the place: a train station that looks like a palace, inaugurated for the 1900 Universal Exposition.

At the end of 2011, the museum reopened all of its entirely renovated spaces as well as some new rooms: an additional 400 m² for the Pavillon Amont, Post-Impressionist artists at the heart of the museum, the redesign of the Impressionists gallery, a new temporary exhibition space, plus a new 'aquatic' decor for the Café des Hauteurs, designed by Brazilian designers, the Campana Brothers.

Address: 1 Rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris, France

HoursOpen today · 9:30AM–6PM

Founded: 1986, Paris, France

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The Art Institute of Chicago collects, preserves, and interprets works of art of the highest quality, representing the world’s diverse artistic traditions, for the inspiration and education of the public and in accordance with our profession’s highest ethical standards and practices.

Historical Overview

The Art Institute of Chicago was founded as both a museum and school for the fine arts in 1879, a critical era in the history of Chicago as civic energies were devoted to rebuilding the metropolis that had been destroyed by the Great Fire of 1871. Its first collections consisting primarily of plaster casts, the Art Institute found its permanent home in 1893, when it moved into a building, constructed jointly with the city of Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street. That building, its entry flanked by the two famous bronze lions, remains the "front door" of the museum even today. In keeping with the academic origins of the institution, a research library was constructed in 1901; eight major expansions for gallery and administrative space have followed, with the latest being the Modern Wing, which opened in 2009. The permanent collection has grown from plaster casts to nearly 300,000 works of art in fields ranging from Chinese bronzes to contemporary design and from textiles to installation art. Together, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the museum of the Art Institute of Chicago are now internationally recognized as two of the leading fine-arts institutions in the United States. 

Address: 111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603, United States

Hours

Open today · 10:30AM–5PM

Phone: +1 312-443-3600

Founded: 1879

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  1. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
   2. Musee d'Orsay
   3. The Art Institute of Chicago
  4. Prado National Museum

The Prado Museum is Madrid's top cultural sight, and one of the world's greatest art galleries. Located in the eponymous street, El Paseo del Prado, its dazzling display of works by the great European masters such as Velázquez, Goya, Raphael, Rubens, and Bosch (among other major Italian and Flemish artists), is housed in an 18th-century Neo-Classical building that opened as a museum in 1819.

Its name derives from the district where it is located, formerly an area of market gardens known as the "prado" or meadow. The Spanish queen at the time had been impressed with the Louvre in Paris and wanted to showcase an enormous collection in her own country. The result is several thousand works at the present time, with a recent modern extension allowing more of them to be displayed.

The sheer scale of the collection can make it daunting, so it is important to arrive with a few of the highlights in mind and concentrate on those. Perhaps the collection's most famous painting is Velazquez's "Las Meninas," showing princess Margarita and her two ladies-in-waiting as well as the artist himself with paintbrush and palette in hand. Another of his famous works, "The Triumph of Bacchus," shows the god of wine with a group of drunkards.

The other major artist of the collection is Goya, whose depiction of nudity in the painting "The Naked Maja" led him to be accused of obscenity. His works make up such a large part of the museum, that his statue stands outside the main entrance.

Another outstanding painting in the history of art is "The Garden of Delights" by Bosch, whose several other works are also represented at the Prado, as he was one of King Filipe II's favourite artists. Also look out for Rubens' "The Adoration of the Magi" and "The Three Graces," depicting three women (the Graces or the daughters of Zeus), dancing and representing Love, Joy, and Revelry.

Rembrandt is also present with his fine self-portrait and "Artemisia," the subject of which is still unclear. Another self-portrait is that of Albrecht Dürer, who painted it at the age of 26.

Address: Paseo del Prado, s/n, 28014 Madrid, Spain

Hours

Open today · 10AM–8PM

ProvinceCommunity of Madrid

Phone: +34 913 30 28 00

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  5. Musee du Louvre

As museums go, the Louvre is quite simply a mammoth. The word "museum" may even be insufficient: the collections are so vast, diverse, and breathtaking that visitors may have the impression of navigating a maze of distinct artistic and cultural worlds.

Housed in the Palais du Louvre (Louvre Palace), the former seat of French royalty, the Louvre emerged in the 12th century as a medieval fortress, slowly evolving toward its status as a public arts museum during the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Since then, it has become the globe's most-visited museum, and an enduring symbol of French excellence in the arts.

Spanning eight thematic departments and 35,000 works of art dating from Antiquity to the early modern period, the museum's permanent collection includes masterpieces by European masters such as Da Vinci, Delacroix, Vermeer, and Rubens, as well as unsurpassed Greco-Roman, Egyptian, or Islamic arts collections. Frequent temporary exhibits often highlight particular artists or movements, and are almost always worthwhile.

Address: 75001 Paris, France

Established: August 10, 1793

Hours

Open today · 9AM–10PM

Phone: +33 1 40 20 50 50

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