The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2025)

FAQs

Why is the Met so famous? ›

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collections include 1.5 million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe.

Events and performers are subject to change. All events are free with Museum admission, which is always pay-what-you-wish for New York State residents and NY, NJ, and CT students with valid ID. Met Members can use their Member card as their ticket and enter at 81st Street and Fifth Avenue.

The Met has a wide focus, featuring everything from the art of the ancient world to contemporary photography (although the bulk of their contemporary collections can be found at the Met Breuer). The MoMA specializes in modern and contemporary art.

$30 for adults; $22 for seniors; $17 for students. Free for Members, Patrons, children under 12, and a caregiver accompanying a visitor with a disability. All tickets include exhibitions and same-day entry to both Met locations for the date on your ticket. Learn more about other discounts, passes, and vouchers.

Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889), Vincent van Gogh

MoMA's Starry Night is more famous, but for depth and breadth, The Met reigns supreme. Irises, Woman Rocking a Cradle, Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat are all major, recognizable paintings, but give me Wheat Field with Cypresses as the most famous.

While its entire building space is technically smaller than the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum covers the largest floor area of any museum in the world, at an incredible 2 million square feet.

Well, first they have to be invited. Not just anyone can buy a ticket or a table to the event. Meanwhile, many celebrities don't pay full freight. Instead, a design house typically springs for a table and invites guests they wish to host, one attendee confirmed to CBS MoneyWatch.

Wealthy celebrities and brands snap up all the available tickets and tables at the charity benefit. An individual ticket goes for around $75,000 (£60,000), more than the average down payment on a house. A 10-seat table starts at $350,000. In 1995, Ms Wintour's first year overseeing the event, a ticket cost just $1,000.

In order to attend the Met Gala, you must be invited (and just because you were invited once, that doesn't guarantee entry every year!). Celebrities, sports stars, fashion figures and other prominent pop culture names of today are among the prestigious bunch who receive invites.

Among the oldest items at the Met, a set of Archeulian flints from Deir el-Bahri which date from the Lower Paleolithic period (between 300,000 and 75,000 BCE), are part of the Egyptian collection. The first curator was Albert Lythgoe, who directed several Egyptian excavations for the museum.

Does the Met have Starry Night? ›

Such iconic pictures as Wheat Field with Cypresses and The Starry Night take their place as the centerpiece in a presentation that affords an unprecedented perspective on a motif virtually synonymous with the Dutch artist's fiercely original power of expression.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired the last painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, a devotional panel of the Madonna and Child above a painted, inlaid parapet, considered a landmark in the history of devotional imagery–from the Stoclet family in Brussels, Belgium for around $45 million, making it the single most ...

Water is allowed in a secure bottle. No other liquids are permitted. Strollers and front-facing baby carriers are welcome. Please note that some exhibitions do not allow strollers.

We encourage you to arrive as early as possible on the day of your visit as exhibition tickets may sell out quickly due to popularity and our capacity limit of 25%, due to health and safety guidelines.

The affair, attended by personalities from the arts, fashion, high-society, film, and music, has been held at the Met since 1948 and is considered to be the global fashion industry's premier annual red carpet event, and as such, promote haute couture themes and styles.

The Met is home to the world's oldest surviving piano.

The museum's collections include about 5000 instruments, and one of them is the world's oldest surviving piano. The antique instrument dates back to 1720, and was created by Bartolomeo Cristofori—the Italian man who is credited with inventing the piano.

It's not just a red carpet event; it's a fundraising benefit for the museum, with tickets priced at tens of thousands of dollars each. The exclusive guest list comprises A-list celebrities, fashion designers, and influential figures from various industries, adding an aura of prestige and exclusivity.

One of the main rules, that helps to keep the allure and mystery of the Met Gala alive is the fact that what happens inside is so secretive thanks to the no-phone rule -- and by extension no social media -- that all invitees must abide by, according to Vogue.com.