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The Museums Portal

The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago, Chile

A museum (/mjuːˈziːəm/ mew-ZEE-əm) is an institution dedicated to displaying and/or preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private collections that are used by researchers and specialists. Compared to a library, a museum hosts a much wider range of objects and usually focus around a specific theme such as the arts, science, natural history, local history, and other topics. Public museums that host exhibitions and interactive demonstrations are often considered to be tourist attractions, and many museums attract large numbers of visitors from outside their host country, with the most visited museums in the world regularly attracting millions of visitors annually.

Since the establishment of the earliest known museum in ancient times, museums have been associated with academia and the preservation of rare items. Museums originated as private collections of interesting items, and not until much later did the emphasis on educating the public take root. (Full article...)

Selected museum

Lavrushinsky Lane

The State Tretyakov Gallery (Russian: Государственная Третьяковская Галерея, romanized: Gosudarstvennaya Tretyakovskaya Galereya; abbreviated ГТГ, GTG) is an art gallery in Moscow, Russia, which is considered the foremost depository of Russian fine art in the world.

The gallery's history starts in 1856 when the Muscovite merchant Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov acquired works by Russian artists of his day with the aim of creating a collection, which might later grow into a museum of national art. In 1892, Tretyakov presented his already famous collection of approximately 2,000 works (1,362 paintings, 526 drawings, and 9 sculptures) to the Russian nation. The museum attracted 894,374 visitors in 2020 (down 68 percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic). It was 13th on the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2020.

The façade of the gallery building was designed by the painter Viktor Vasnetsov in a peculiar Russian fairy-tale style. It was built in 1902–04 to the south from the Moscow Kremlin. During the 20th century, the gallery expanded to several neighboring buildings, including the 17th-century church of St. Nicholas in Tolmachi. The collection contains more than 130,000 exhibits, ranging from the Theotokos of Vladimir to the monumental Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky and the Black Square by Kazimir Malevich. In 1977 the Gallery kept a significant part of the George Costakis collection.

In May 2012, the Tretyakov Art Gallery played host to the prestigious FIDE World Chess Championship between Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand as the organizers felt the event would promote both chess and art at the same time. In May 2023, the Tretyakov Gallery refused to hand over one of its most famous icons, Andrei Rublev's Trinity, to the Russian Orthodox Church. In June 2023 the icon was transferred to Moscow's main cathedral despite the museum's protests on the personal order of Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Full article...)

Selected interior image

Image 1A museum in Verkhniye Mandrogi, Leningrad Oblast, specialising in vodka
Image 2Triangular prism-shaped display cases in the Red Dot Design Museum, Essen
Image 3Exhibit in Indonesia Museum, Jakarta, displaying the traditional costumes of Indonesian ethnic groups
Image 4Old Dutch display case in Branderszaal Lange Haven 97, Schiedam
Image 5Storage gallery of the Larco Museum, Lima, Peru, a museum of pre-Columbian art
Image 6The Galerie des Glaces of the Palace of Versailles
Image 7The Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, has the world's largest stained-glass ceiling, designed by Leonard French.
Image 8Iron bed in torture room at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh
Image 9The Tower of Faces at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Image 10Antique cuckoo clocks displayed at Cuckooland Museum, Tabley, an example of a specialised museum
Image 11Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, an archaeology and anthropology museum
Image 12Entrance hall of the Vienna Technical Museum, one of the largest technology museums in Europe
Image 13Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale
Image 14The queen's chamber of the Petit Trianon, Versailles, the former residence of Marie Antoinette
Image 15The South Hall of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia, an aerospace museum, showing the Enola Gay bomber and other aeroplanes
Image 16The Industrial Gallery, housed in the original part of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, designed by Yeoville Thomason and opened in 1885
Image 17An early 18th-century German Schrank with a traditional display of corals, from the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin
Image 18The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, showing some of its collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities
Image 19Panoramic view of the library of the Guimet Museum, Paris, an art museum specialising in Asian art
Image 20Display cases in Altena Castle
Image 21The Dinosaur Hall of the Naturkundemuseum, Berlin, showing the skeleton of Giraffatitan brancai, among the largest mounted skeletons in the world
Image 22Floating Heads by Sophie Cave (2006), installed in the East Court of the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Selected general article

A conservator-restorer is a professional responsible for the preservation of artistic and cultural artifacts, also known as cultural heritage. Conservators possess the expertise to preserve cultural heritage in a way that retains the integrity of the object, building or site, including its historical significance, context and aesthetic or visual aspects. This kind of preservation is done by analyzing and assessing the condition of cultural property, understanding processes and evidence of deterioration, planning collections care or site management strategies that prevent damage, carrying out conservation treatments, and conducting research. A conservator's job is to ensure that the objects in a museum's collection are kept in the best possible condition, as well as to serve the museum's mission to bring art before the public. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that Carl Cotton was the first black taxidermist to work at the Field Museum of Natural History after being hired in 1947?
... that New York City's Bartow–Pell Mansion became a museum after its operator was restricted from importing and exporting plants?
... that Lamia Al-Gailani Werr helped rebuild the Iraq Museum after it was looted in the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq?
... that the Land of Lost Content contains bluebirds from the Blue Bird Toffee factory gates, tickets from the first National Lottery draw and a Sinclair C5?
... that Hasanpaşa Gasworks escaped its demolition through the resistance of local residents, became a festival venue for a time and was finally transformed into a museum after redevelopment?
... that the Museum of Classic Sci-Fi is located in the cellar of a house in Allendale, Northumberland?

Get involved

For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Museums-related articles, see WikiProject Museums.

Selected exterior image

Image 1Aerial view of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel's Holocaust memorial; the museum, designed by Moshe Safdie, opened in 2005 and tells the personal stories of ninety Holocaust victims and survivors
Image 2The British Museum, London
Image 3The Museo del Prado, Madrid, established in 1785
Image 4A maritime museum located in the village of Bolungarvík, Vestfirðir, Iceland, showing a 19th-century fishing base with a typical boat of the period and associated industrial buildings: an example of a very small museum
Image 5Now closed, the California Aerospace Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, formerly displayed a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter
Image 6The Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, has a permanent collection of murals and hosts an architecture museum.
Image 7National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Image 8Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña, an architecture museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that focuses on the Ponce Creole architectural style
Image 9Entrance to Auschwitz I, part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a Holocaust museum on the site of the former Nazi concentration camps
Image 10Shanghai Museum, a museum of ancient Chinese art, was rebuilt in 1996 to a design inspired by the ding, an ancient bronze cooking vessel.
Image 11São Paulo Museum of Art, São Paulo, a 1968 concrete-and-glass structure designed by Lina Bo Bardi, considered a landmark of the city and a major example of modern Brazilian architecture
Image 12The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Image 13Paifang or arched entrance of the Northern Branch of the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, whose collection covers 8,000 years of the history of Chinese art
Image 14The Lower Castle of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, one of the earliest buildings constructed specifically for use as a museum; it remains a museum displaying its original collections
Image 15The Cambodian National Museum, Phnom Penh, showing its vernacular architectural style
Image 16Small cloister of the charterhouse of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian; part of the National Roman Museum of Rome
Image 17The Peristylia hall in National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, the largest museum in Indonesia and one of that country's oldest
Image 18The National Art Center, Tokyo, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, is an "empty museum", lacking its own collection, which hosts temporary exhibitions from other organisations.
Image 19The Louvre, Paris, showing the glass-and-metal Pyramid, designed by I. M. Pei to act as the museum's main entrance, and completed in 1989
Image 20The Deutsches Museum, Munich, one of the world's largest science and technology museums
Image 21The Museum Island, Berlin
Image 22Indonesia Museum, in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an ethnology museum exemplifying Balinese architecture
Image 23The Dalí Theatre and Museum, commemorating Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, Catalonia, has a geodesic dome and is decorated with giant eggs.
Image 24Exhibitions Pavilion and Rotunda of the Getty Center, Los Angeles, an art museum
Image 25The Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia, has an extensive collection of Armenian manuscripts.
Image 26The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain, a modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1997
Image 27The State Historical Museum, Moscow
Image 28The Palazzo Vecchio Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the most-visited museum in Italy

Selected type of museum

The Russian *Aurora*, one of the few protected cruisers to be preserved, is one of the world's most visited vessels

A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small number of museum ships that are still operational and thus capable of regular movement.

Several hundred museum ships are kept around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though many are not naval museum ships, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum. (Full article...)

In the news

12 May 2024 –: Forty-nine Vatican Museums employees start an unprecedented labor dispute over unfair and poor working conditions against the Vatican's Pontifical Commission. (Reuters)
6 May 2024 –: The 2024 Met Gala takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with the theme "The Garden of Time", celebrating the Met's exhibit Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion. (Vanity Fair)