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Gallery Highlights

Among the many features that make the Museum so unique are its authentic architectural assemblages and period rooms. From a ceremonial Japanese tea house to an opulent mirrored grand salon from eighteenth-century France, these rare settings allow the visitor to literally step inside bygone eras. Other gallery highlights include several seldom-changing installations that may feature a selection of decorative arts, a grouping of related canvases, or a concentration of other works.

Collections Overview

The Museum is home to over 225,000 objects, spanning the creative achievements of the Western world since the first century AD and those of Asia since the third millennium BC. The European holdings date from the Medieval era to the present, and the collection of arms and armor is the second largest in the United States. The American collections are among the finest in the country, as are the expanding collections of modern and contemporary art. In addition, the Museum houses encyclopedic holdings of costume and textiles as well as prints, drawings, and photographs that are displayed in rotation for reasons of preservation.

 

American Art

Three centuries of portraits, landscapes, furniture, sculpture, silver, glass, crafts, architecture, and decorative arts with a special emphasis on Philadelphia’s rich traditions...

Arms & Armor

Plate and mail armor, polearms, swords, daggers, firearms, shields, crossbows, and equestrian equipment that was used in war, various forms of tournament, and processions...
 

Asian Art

Sculpture, furniture, scrolls, porcelain, crystal, tiles, carpets, paintings, and architecture from all parts of Asia, spanning from 2500 B.C. to the present day...

Costume & Textiles

Woven and printed textiles, embroidery, lace, quilts, coverlets, and samplers, as well as fine historic fashions and accessories...
 

Dutch Ceramics

Colorful tiles, porcelain, and Delft earthenware ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century...

European Art 1100–1500

Panel paintings, stained glass, reliquaries, illuminated manuscripts, metal and woodwork, tapestries, sculpture, and architectural elements illustrating the development of Medieval and early Renaissance art...
 

European Art 1500–1850

Paintings, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, and tapestries from the High Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical periods...

European Art 1850–1900

Major paintings, furniture, sculpture, block-printed wallpapers, and ceramics representing Impressionism, International Realism, Post-Impressionism, and Art Nouveau...
 

Modern & Contemporary Art

Paintings, sculpture, collages, video, decorative arts, and design from the dawn of the twentieth century to the present day...

Prints, Drawings & Photographs

Etchings, woodcuts, watercolors, collages, gouaches, posters, photographs, and photogravures dating from the fifteenth century to the present...

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