On this day in New York · February 20, 1872
The Met Opens Its Doors
A railroad man's private art collection, crammed into a rented Fifth Avenue mansion, was the start of what's now one of the great museums on Earth.
The facts
- Date
- February 20, 1872
- First location
- Dodworth Building, 681 Fifth Avenue near 54th Street
- First president
- John Taylor Johnston
- Opening collection
- 174 mostly European paintings and a Roman marble sarcophagus
The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened to the public for the first time on February 20, 1872, in the Dodworth Building, a former mansion at 681 Fifth Avenue near 54th Street. The museum had been chartered two years earlier, in April 1870, with a mandate to furnish New Yorkers with art and, in the language of its own charter, popular instruction and recreations. Its opening collection was modest by today's standards: a Roman marble sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings. Railroad executive John Taylor Johnston, whose own private art collection helped seed the institution, served as the Met's first president, with publisher George Palmer Putnam as its founding superintendent. The rented rooms didn't last long; within a year the museum was already looking for more space.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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for the purpose of 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 Metropolitan Museum of Art's Act of Incorporation, April 13, 1870
Source: Village Preservation -
John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum, served as its first President.
New World Encyclopedia entry on the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Source: New World Encyclopedia
Why it still matters
The charter's promise of popular instruction and recreations meant free public access to art was built into the Met from day one, not tacked on later. That idea, born in a rented Fifth Avenue mansion, grew into one of the largest museums on Earth.
Sources
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