What is the best thing to see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City?

Question

I am doing a report on the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the one in New York). And I was wondering what is the best thing to see there, and please go into detail. Thanks

Answer 1

My favorite (and, it's not popular, it's not even well known) is the Gubbio Studio. It's a fifteenth century library in a duke's palace. As you walk into this room, you see cabinets, closets, bookcases filled with books, musical instruments, scientific instruments, all made of little pieces of inlaid wood. You are not going to believe it when you get close - it's flat! This should take your breath away - I can't describe it. And the museum hardly advertises it. It's on the first floor, north of the medieval sculpture court.
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/viewOne.asp?dep=12&viewmode=0&item=39.153

Next favorite are the weapons and armor:
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/department.asp?dep=4

Then, the costumes
http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/department.asp?dep=8

You can't possibly see this place in one visit. It's one of the greatest museums in the world.

I agreee with Tham about The Cloisters - love that place - and I love the music they play - Gregorian chants.

Answer 2

Maybe the best thing is the The Temple of Dendur.
An Egyptian temple that was brought over from Egypt in the 1960's and re-assembled in the Museum.
A Whole wing was added just to put it in.

If not the best, it is the largest thing there, and my personal favorite.

It was built as a shrine to the goddess Isis in about 15 B.C. by order of the Roman emperor Augustus not long after the Romans gained control of Egypt. The temple was also built to commemorate two deceased brothers, sons of a Nubian chieftain, who were revered by the local population as saints.

The temple had to be dismantled and removed from its place in 1963 because the waters of the Nile rising behind the new Aswan High Dam would otherwise have submerged it. Two years later, in 1965, the government of Egypt offered the temple to the United States in its dismantled state in recognition for the aid America had provided toward saving a number of Nubian temples doomed to be permanently flooded by the construction of the High Dam. The temple blocks, which weighed more than eight hundred tons, were packed into some 640 crates and shipped by freighter to the United States. President Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to consider the best location; after a series of hearings, it was decided that the temple would be placed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Answer 3

You can see parts of exhibits on their website (metmuseum.org) so that would be a good place to start.

Personally, I'm partial to the old European paintings on the second floor, lots of famous painting by old masters, but when I was a kid, I loved the Egyptian wing. It's got a temple that was taken from Egypt, plus art, heiroglyphics, and many carcophogi. My brother likes the Arms & Armor exhibit, which includes what you'd expect: antique armor, fancy guns and swords, etc.

You should mention in your report that people from all over come to see the Christmas tree in the medieval art section every December.