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Metropolitan Museum Research Paper

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. The main Neoclassical architectural style building is located on the eastern edge of Central Park in New York City, New York. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. It was founded in 1870 with a mission to collect, preserve, and display works of art. In 1866 a group of Americans gathered at a restaurant to celebrate the Fourth of July. After dinner, John Jay, a prominent lawyer gave a speech proposing that he and his compatriots decided to create a “national institution and gallery of art.” In the next four years, they convinced American civic leaders, art collectors, and philanthropists to support the project, and finally in 1870 the Metropolitan Museum of Art was incorporated. During the 1870s the museum was housed in two different locations in New York City, first in a building at 681 Fifth Avenue and later at 128 West 14th Street. In 1880 the museum moved to its present location in Central Park on Fifth Avenue between 80th and 84th Streets. The museum moved to this land to make a permanent home for the collections. This original Gothic Revival-style brick building, designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mold, was opened to …show more content…

The overall aim of the expansion was to make the Museum's collections more accessible to the public, more useful to the scholars and, in general, more interesting, and informative to all visitors. The size and diversity of the artwork on display is even more impressive; the museum’s collection contains works from every part of the world, spanning the Stone Age to the twentieth century. The Egyptian Art gallery includes a whole temple that was shipped to America as a gift. The floor plans of the museum are very helpful for the visitors, despite their seeming complexity, though, the galleries are arranged to help them navigate through with

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