50 Fun Facts About Museum

The word "museum" comes from the Greek mouseion, meaning a temple dedicated to whom?

The most famous was the Musaeum of Alexandria, founded under Ptolemy I around 280 BC, which is why early libraries were called museums.

Which Rome institution, begun with a 1471 papal gift, is the world's oldest public museum?

Pope Sixtus IV's gift included the Capitoline Wolf; the Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue and Dying Gaul are also there.

One of the oldest known museums was built around 530 BC by Princess Ennigaldi in which modern country?

Her collection of labeled Mesopotamian antiquities dates to the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Which Oxford institution, opened in 1683, is Britain's first public museum?

Elias Ashmole's cabinet of curiosities came largely from the gardener-collectors John Tradescant, father and son.

The British Museum, established in 1753, was founded on the collections of which physician?

It opened in Montagu House in 1759 as the world's first public national museum, and still charges no admission.

What is the most visited single object in the British Museum?

It carries a 196 BC decree in hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek and has been on display almost continuously since 1802.

The Louvre opened as a museum in 1793 with an exhibition of how many paintings?

Most were royal property or confiscated from the church during the Revolution.

Which architect designed the glass pyramid that became the Louvre's main entrance?

President Mitterrand chose him personally; the Inverted Pyramid in the underground Carrousel du Louvre followed in 1993.

Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?

The Italian handyman claimed patriotism; the theft did as much as anything to make the painting world-famous.

Which French king acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death in 1519?

It is painted in oil on a white poplar panel and was likely begun around 1503.

The Louvre Palace was originally built in the late 12th century as what?

Remnants of the medieval fortress are still visible in the museum's basement; it became a royal residence in 1546.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's main building sits on which New York thoroughfare?

Its address on the "Museum Mile" is 1000 Fifth Avenue; The Cloisters, its medieval branch, is uptown in Fort Tryon Park.

What is the popular centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Art department?

The Met was founded in 1870 and lists about 1.5 million works.

Which British scientist left his fortune to the United States, giving the Smithsonian its name?

Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian now runs 21 museums, 21 libraries and a zoo, mostly in Washington, D.C.

How many museums does the Smithsonian Institution operate?

Its holdings run to more than 157 million items; the National Museum of Natural History opened in 1911.

Florence's Uffizi takes its name from the Italian word for what?

Vasari began the complex in 1560 to house Cosimo I de' Medici's administrative agencies; it formally became a museum in 1865.

The Prado's most extensively represented artist is which Spanish painter?

The Madrid museum opened in November 1819 with a catalogue devoted solely to Spanish painting.

Which empress founded the Hermitage Museum in 1764?

She bought a collection of paintings from a Berlin merchant; the museum now holds the world's largest collection of paintings.

The Hermitage's main complex includes which former imperial residence?

A population of cats lives on the museum grounds and has become an attraction in its own right.

Which architect designed the Rijksmuseum's main building, opened in Amsterdam in 1885?

The museum shows about 8,000 objects from a collection of one million, including Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer.

Where in Midtown does New York's Museum of Modern Art stand?

It moved to its current site between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in 1939.

Which architect designed New York's spiral Guggenheim Museum, completed in 1959?

The design took 15 years and drew controversy for the unusual sloping display spaces.

The Vatican Museums trace their origin to which ancient sculpture, unearthed in a Roman vineyard in 1506?

Pope Julius II sent Michelangelo to inspect the find and put it on public display exactly a month later.

Which room is deliberately the last one on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums?

There are 24 galleries in all; Michelangelo's ceiling and altar wall are the finale.

The Musée d'Orsay in Paris occupies a former what?

The Beaux-Arts Gare d'Orsay was built for 1900; the museum opened in 1986 with the world's largest Impressionist collection.

London's Tate Modern is housed in a converted what?

Bankside Power Station was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who also did Battersea Power Station; the Turbine Hall is its centrepiece.

Which architect designed London's Natural History Museum building, opened in 1881?

His Romanesque terracotta façades house some 80 million specimens across botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology.

New York's natural history museum on Central Park West stands in a park named after which president?

Roosevelt's father helped found the museum in 1869; the complex has 21 interconnected buildings and 45 halls.

How many works were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990?

Two thieves dressed as police officers took 81 minutes; the empty frames still hang and a $10 million reward stands.

Which Vermeer, taken in the Gardner heist, is thought to be the world's most valuable unrecovered painting?

Rembrandt's only seascape, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, vanished the same night.

Sue, the famous T. rex at Chicago's Field Museum, sold at auction in 1997 for roughly how much?

It was then the highest price ever paid for a fossil; it had been found in South Dakota in 1990.

Which architect designed the Louvre Abu Dhabi and its 7,000-tonne perforated dome?

It was inaugurated in November 2017 by Emmanuel Macron and the UAE's leaders.

The Museum of Bad Art, whose motto is "art too bad to be ignored", is in which US state?

It began in 1993 after antique dealer Scott Wilson rescued a painting from the trash, and once occupied a theater basement in Dedham.

In Night at the Museum, where does Ben Stiller's Larry Daley take a night-watchman job?

The 2006 film is based on Milan Trenc's 1993 children's book; Robin Williams plays a waxwork of a president.

International Museum Day is held each year on or around which date?

ICOM has coordinated it since 1977.

Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum opened in 1997 in which Spanish city?

King Juan Carlos I opened it on the banks of the Nervión; the regeneration it sparked is now called the "Bilbao effect".

Which Van Gogh painting hangs at the Getty Center in Los Angeles?

Richard Meier's $1.3 billion hilltop campus in Brentwood opened in December 1997.

The Acropolis Museum in Athens, opened in 2009, was designed by which architect?

A gallery for the Parthenon Marbles was central to the design, part of Greece's case for their return from London.

Berlin's Pergamon Museum closed in October 2023 for renovations expected to last how long?

It houses the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate and the Museum of Islamic Art; Museum Island became a World Heritage Site in 1999.

The Grand Egyptian Museum, officially opened in November 2025, stands near which landmark?

It displays Tutankhamun's complete 5,398-piece collection together for the first time.

The Museum of Broken Relationships was founded in which city?

Artists Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić started it; a second permanent site opened in Chiang Mai in 2024.

Which tsar opened the Kunstkamera, Russia's first public museum, in 1714?

He was inspired by the cabinets of curiosities he saw on his "Grand Embassy" tour of Europe.

The Louvre displays about how many works of art at any one time?

Its total holdings are around 500,000 objects across eight curatorial departments.

Which fossil hunter discovered the T. rex now named after her in South Dakota in 1990?

She was exploring cliffs on her own while the rest of the crew went to fix a flat tire.

Gerrit Rietveld and which Japanese architect designed the Van Gogh Museum's buildings?

The museum opened on 2 June 1973 and holds the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings.

Taipei's National Palace Museum was originally founded in Beijing in which year?

It began as the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City after the last emperor Puyi was expelled; it was re-established in Taipei in 1965.

London's V&A is the world's largest museum of what?

Its permanent collection tops 2.8 million objects spread across six UK sites, including V&A Dundee.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo occupies a 1901 building in which location?

It holds over 170,000 items, the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities anywhere, and was the Middle East's first national museum.

In which city was the Rijksmuseum founded in 1798, before moving to Amsterdam?

In Amsterdam it was first housed in the Royal Palace and then the Trippenhuis before Cuypers' building opened in 1885.

Who reopened the Rijksmuseum in 2013 after its ten-year, €375 million renovation?

The renovated museum drew record crowds of 2.2 million and 2.47 million visitors in 2013 and 2014.