50 free Museum trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
44 free Museum trivia questions with answers. Museums are where civilizations keep their receipts, and their own stories are just as good as their collections. This quiz ranges from a Babylonian princess's cabinet of antiquities and the temple of the Muses at Alexandria to the Louvre's glass pyramid, the Smithsonian's 21 museums, Sue the T. rex, the Gardner heist and the Museum of Bad Art. Expect questions on founders and architects, famous objects and thefts, the oldest and biggest institutions, and a few gloriously odd ones. About a third are easy for anyone who has spent a rainy afternoon in a gallery, a third are medium and the rest are for docents and habitual gift-shop visitors. Every answer is checked against the museum's reference page.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word "museum" comes from the Greek mouseion, meaning a temple dedicated to whom?
The Muses
The most famous was the Musaeum of Alexandria, founded under Ptolemy I around 280 BC, which is why early libraries were called museums.
Q 02Which Rome institution, begun with a 1471 papal gift, is the world's oldest public museum?
The Capitoline Museums
Pope Sixtus IV's gift included the Capitoline Wolf; the Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue and Dying Gaul are also there.
Q 03One of the oldest known museums was built around 530 BC by Princess Ennigaldi in which modern country?
Iraq
Her collection of labeled Mesopotamian antiquities dates to the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Q 04Which Oxford institution, opened in 1683, is Britain's first public museum?
The Ashmolean
Elias Ashmole's cabinet of curiosities came largely from the gardener-collectors John Tradescant, father and son.
Q 05The British Museum, established in 1753, was founded on the collections of which physician?
Sir Hans Sloane
It opened in Montagu House in 1759 as the world's first public national museum, and still charges no admission.
Q 06What is the most visited single object in the British Museum?
The Rosetta Stone
It carries a 196 BC decree in hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek and has been on display almost continuously since 1802.
Q 07The Louvre opened as a museum in 1793 with an exhibition of how many paintings?
537
Most were royal property or confiscated from the church during the Revolution.
Q 08Which architect designed the glass pyramid that became the Louvre's main entrance?
I. M. Pei
President Mitterrand chose him personally; the Inverted Pyramid in the underground Carrousel du Louvre followed in 1993.
Q 09Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911?
Vincenzo Peruggia
The Italian handyman claimed patriotism; the theft did as much as anything to make the painting world-famous.
Q 10Which French king acquired the Mona Lisa after Leonardo's death in 1519?
Francis I
It is painted in oil on a white poplar panel and was likely begun around 1503.
Q 11The Louvre Palace was originally built in the late 12th century as what?
A fortress
Remnants of the medieval fortress are still visible in the museum's basement; it became a royal residence in 1546.
Q 12The Metropolitan Museum of Art's main building sits on which New York thoroughfare?
Fifth Avenue
Its address on the "Museum Mile" is 1000 Fifth Avenue; The Cloisters, its medieval branch, is uptown in Fort Tryon Park.
Q 13What is the popular centerpiece of the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Art department?
The Temple of Dendur
The Met was founded in 1870 and lists about 1.5 million works.
Q 21Where in Midtown does New York's Museum of Modern Art stand?
53rd Street
It moved to its current site between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in 1939.
Q 22Which architect designed New York's spiral Guggenheim Museum, completed in 1959?
Frank Lloyd Wright
The design took 15 years and drew controversy for the unusual sloping display spaces.
Q 23The Vatican Museums trace their origin to which ancient sculpture, unearthed in a Roman vineyard in 1506?
Laocoön and His Sons
Pope Julius II sent Michelangelo to inspect the find and put it on public display exactly a month later.
Q 14Which British scientist left his fortune to the United States, giving the Smithsonian its name?
James Smithson
Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian now runs 21 museums, 21 libraries and a zoo, mostly in Washington, D.C.
Q 15How many museums does the Smithsonian Institution operate?
21
Its holdings run to more than 157 million items; the National Museum of Natural History opened in 1911.
Q 16Florence's Uffizi takes its name from the Italian word for what?
Offices
Vasari began the complex in 1560 to house Cosimo I de' Medici's administrative agencies; it formally became a museum in 1865.
Q 17The Prado's most extensively represented artist is which Spanish painter?
Francisco Goya
The Madrid museum opened in November 1819 with a catalogue devoted solely to Spanish painting.
Q 18Which empress founded the Hermitage Museum in 1764?
Catherine the Great
She bought a collection of paintings from a Berlin merchant; the museum now holds the world's largest collection of paintings.
Q 19The Hermitage's main complex includes which former imperial residence?
The Winter Palace
A population of cats lives on the museum grounds and has become an attraction in its own right.
Q 20Which architect designed the Rijksmuseum's main building, opened in Amsterdam in 1885?
Pierre Cuypers
The museum shows about 8,000 objects from a collection of one million, including Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer.
Q 24Which room is deliberately the last one on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums?
The Sistine Chapel
There are 24 galleries in all; Michelangelo's ceiling and altar wall are the finale.
Q 25The Musée d'Orsay in Paris occupies a former what?
Railway station
The Beaux-Arts Gare d'Orsay was built for 1900; the museum opened in 1986 with the world's largest Impressionist collection.
Q 26London's Tate Modern is housed in a converted what?
Power station
Bankside Power Station was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who also did Battersea Power Station; the Turbine Hall is its centrepiece.
Q 27Which architect designed London's Natural History Museum building, opened in 1881?
Alfred Waterhouse
His Romanesque terracotta façades house some 80 million specimens across botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology.
Q 28New York's natural history museum on Central Park West stands in a park named after which president?
Theodore Roosevelt
Roosevelt's father helped found the museum in 1869; the complex has 21 interconnected buildings and 45 halls.
Q 29How many works were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990?
13
Two thieves dressed as police officers took 81 minutes; the empty frames still hang and a $10 million reward stands.
Q 30Which Vermeer, taken in the Gardner heist, is thought to be the world's most valuable unrecovered painting?
The Concert
Rembrandt's only seascape, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, vanished the same night.