The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. Since its founding in 1870 by a group of civic leaders, artists, and patrons including figures such as John Taylor Johnston and John Jay, the Museum has been shaped by the philanthropy of influential benefactors like Henry Gurdon Marquand, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller Jr., whose leadership and gifts helped grow the collection and the Museum’s Fifth Avenue and Cloisters sites.

Today, The Met lives across two New York City locations: The Met Fifth Avenue (1 ) and The Met Cloisters (2) after the closure of The Met Breuer, which operated in the former Whitney Museum building on Madison Avenue from 2016 until it permanently closed in 2020.