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The Metropolitan Museum of Art 5^th Avenue New York NY, sometimes referred to as "the Met," is the most significant art museum in the America. Its permanent collection consists of more than two million pieces dispersed across 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 Fifth Avenue is situated alongside Manhattan's Upper East Side. The Museum Mile and the southern edge of Central Park are home to one of the largest art museums in the world. Around 2 million square feet (190,000 m2) of the building's initial phase were built in 1880. A sizable collection of artwork, structures, and artifacts from medieval Europe are kept in the Cloisters at Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, a far smaller second location.

When The Metropolitan Museum of Art 5^th Avenue New York NY was founded in 1870, it intended to introduce art and art education to the people of America. The museum's permanent collection comprises works by virtually every great European Master and pieces from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity. There is also a substantial collection of modern and American pieces. African, Asian, Oceanian, Islamic, and Byzantine art are all well represented in the Met's extensive collection. The museum houses extensive collections of attire, accouterments, musical instruments, and historical armor and weapons worldwide. From first-century Roman interiors to modern American design, it has several notable interiors in its galleries.

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ART:

The Met gathered antique artwork and objects from the Near East in the late 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 5^th Avenue New York NY collection of Near Eastern art has expanded from a few cuneiform tablets and seals to more than 7,000 items. The collection includes artifacts from the Sumerian, Hittite, Sasanian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Elamite cultures (among others) and a large assortment of distinctive Bronze Age objects. It depicts the area's history from the Neolithic Period through the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the end of Late Antiquity. One of the collection's centerpieces is a massive stone lamassu, or guardian figurine, from the Northwest Palace of the Assyrian monarch Ashurnasirpal II.

ASIAN ART:

With more than 35,000 items, the Asian section of the Met has one of the largest collections of Asian art in the country. The collection predates the museum's inception nearly entirely. Many benefactors who made the first contributions to the institution included Asian art in their holdings. The Asian collection, which covers 4,000 years of Asian art, now occupies an entire wing of the museum. In the Asian section of the Met, every known Asian culture is represented. Asian art has every kind of decorative art on show, from painting and printing to sculpture and metallurgy.

The department is renowned for its extensive collection of Chinese calligraphy and painting. Asian art has sculptures from India, Nepal, and Tibet and works from Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma (Myanmar). Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, three of India's ancient religions, are all prominently displayed in these sculptures. However, the collection includes more than just "art" and ceremonial artifacts; many of the most well-known are practical items. An entire Ming Dynasty-style garden court, based on a courtyard at the Master of the Nets Garden in Suzhou, may be found in the Asian wing. Since 2011, Maxwell K. Hearn has presided over the Asian Art department.

AMERICAN WING:

On January 16, 2012, the museum's collection of American art reopened for viewing in fresh galleries. Visitors to the new display may learn about American art history from the early 19th century to the present. The presentation of The Metropolitan Museum of Art 5^th Avenue New York NY collection will take up 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2) in the new galleries. Sylvia Yount has been the American Wing's curator since September 2014.

EGYPTIAN ART

Private collections provided most of the Met's original holdings of Egyptian art. Objects discovered during the museum's archaeological digs between 1906 and 1941 account for about half of the present collection. The Met's Egyptian collection includes almost 26,000 individual items of Egyptian art from the Paleolithic age to the Ptolemaic era, virtually all of which are on exhibit in the museum's vast wing of 40 Egyptian galleries.

13 wooden models, found in a tomb in the Southern Asasif in western Thebes in 1920, are among the most priceless items in the Met's Egyptian collection. Of the 24 models found together, 12 and 1 offering bearer figure are at the Met. The other 10 models and 1 offering bearer figure are in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Incomparable detail is used in these miniatures to portray various aspects of early Middle Kingdom Egyptian life, including boats, gardens, and scenes from everyday life. A miniature of William, the Faience Hippopotamus, is seen to the right.

CREATING A NATIONAL NARRATIVE

The Met's roots in America may be seen in its post-Civil War foundation, guided by eminent American painters. The initial director, however, had conflicting opinions on the national school and even referred to New York artists as "humbugs." American art was only sometimes added to the collection, generally as gifts. The institution started concentrating on collecting American paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts in the first decade of the 20th century. This collection happened when the country became a significant power and European immigration peaked. Merican art created the collection to further a conception of what it meant to be an American. It was driven by both a progressive attitude and an undercurrent of nationalism. The Met's American Wing opened in 1924 as an embodiment of these ideals.