FIG.13EGYPT
Funerary arts.
Sarcophagi, papyri, royal portraiture across three millennia.
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CHAPTER 02 · 13 DEPARTMENTSOne of the most comprehensive art collections in the world.
Nearly 500,000 works across thirteen curatorial areas, spanning every continent and roughly five thousand years. Each area is its own department of curators, conservators, and educators.
FIG. 008 · INSTALLATION VIEW · GALLERY 232
13 DEPARTMENTS / 500K WORKS
SECTION I · ANCHOR DEPARTMENTS
Three cornerstones.
The most expansive areas of the museum — each its own multi-floor wing — that anchor the encyclopedic mission.
01 · WING / OPENED 2010
Art of the Americas.
Four levels and 53 galleries opened in 2010 — pre-Columbian gold, colonial silver, John Singleton Copley portraits, John Singer Sargent murals, photography from the Civil War onward, and contemporary craft from across the hemisphere.
It tells a single, intertwined story of the Americas: indigenous, colonial, immigrant, and revolutionary, organised by floor and chronology rather than by national borders.
53 GALLERIES · 4 LEVELS · 2010
02 · WING / I.M. PEI 1981
Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art.
The Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art occupies I.M. Pei's 1981 West Wing. Reopened in September 2011 with seven new galleries plus the existing Foster Gallery, it presents painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation by living and recent artists.
Programming rotates regularly, with recent focuses on artists from across the African diaspora, Latin America, Indigenous North America, and contemporary South and Southeast Asia.
7 NEW GALLERIES · REOPENED 2011
03 · DEPARTMENT / ASIAN ART CORE
Art of Asia.
The MFA holds one of the most extensive collections of Asian art outside Asia: Chinese painting and calligraphy, Korean ceramics, Japanese ukiyo-e, South Asian sculpture, and the Bengali popular print. The Buddhist Temple Room, reinstalled in early 2023, anchors the experience.
Audio recordings read by members of the local Bengali community accompany the prints in the Torf Gallery, exploring how images of Hindu gods are used in homes through devotion, storytelling, and music.
REINSTALLED 2023
SECTION II · INDEX
Ten further departments.
Curatorial areas with their own galleries, study rooms, and rotating programmes throughout the year.
- 04 Ancient Egypt, Nubia & the Near East Built on a forty-year archaeological partnership with Harvard. One of the world's richest collections of Nubian art.
- 05 Ancient Greece & Rome The Behrakis Wing reopened in 2021 with five renovated galleries — red-figure vase painting, Roman portrait sculpture, gold jewelry.
- 06 Art of Europe Medieval altarpieces to Impressionism — Rembrandt, Vermeer, El Greco, Velázquez, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin. Center for Netherlandish Art (2021).
- 07 Art of Africa & Oceania Ceremonial sculpture, masks, textiles, and beadwork from across the African continent and the Pacific.
- 08 Photography One of the deepest photography holdings in the United States — daguerreotypes through documentary, fashion, and contemporary practice.
- 09 Prints & Drawings 200,000+ works on paper — Dürer, Goya, Japanese ukiyo-e, Picasso lithographs, contemporary print editions.
- 10 Fashion, Textiles & Jewelry The Logie Department — Han dynasty silks to twenty-first-century couture.
- 11 Musical Instruments One of the oldest collections of its kind — keyboard, string, wind, percussion from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa.
- 12 Judaica "Intentional Beauty" — Havdalah spice boxes, Torah ornaments, ceremonial textiles. Krupenia shakudo vessels.
- 13 Jewelry Five thousand years in a few rooms — Egyptian amulets, Hellenistic gold, Mughal pendants, Cartier brooches, postwar studio jewelry.
FIG.15PHOTOGRAPHY
Faces in the crowd.
Recent street photography programme draws from the deep documentary holdings.
FIG.20JEWELRY
Five thousand years.
From Egyptian amulets to postwar studio jewelry.
CLOSING NOTE
Only have an hour? A self-guided highlights tour spans the global collection from ancient times to today — a short loop for first-time visitors.
— Editorial recommendation · 2026